


Upstart Crow: the Autobiography of Willy Wonka.

by TayBartlett9000



Category: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - All Media Types, Original Work, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Genre: 1901-1980, Autobiography, Capitalism, Cassandra of Hereford (original character), Chocolate, College, Dark, Determination, Drama, Funny, Gen, Historical, Humour, Love, Parents, Pure Imagination, Revenge, Rivalry, Strong Characters, Stupidity, Victorian, Wendy Wonka (original character), Word Play, Youth, daft humour, early life, edwardian, familial ruination, genious, miraculous escapes, reclusive miser, somewhat conveniant plot twists, suffragette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-04-01 12:59:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 41,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13998849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TayBartlett9000/pseuds/TayBartlett9000
Summary: At the  dawn of the twentieth century, Mr Willy Wonka was known as the greatest   chocolate maker the world had ever known,  but  after the string of child murders that took place  inside his own factory, his name faded into obscurity.When  academic college  scoller Murron Cain wanders into  the college library, she stumbles upon the book and decides to get the long dead genious's only work of academia reprinted.This is the autobiography of Mr Willy Wonka himself, the life, the previously unknown tragedies and dreams, brought  together into one hard backed volume.Now we will  come to understand whether Mr Wonka was a  sadly forgotten exentric genious, or a reclusive miser who rather enjoyed the outcomes of those children who died in his factory.





	1. Introduction.

**Author's Note:**

> This novel is a work of pure imagination. I made it up. I know that the 2005 adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic book attempted to give us a backstory of sorts about Wonka's early years, but I decided to throw that out of the window and have some fun with it. This is just for a laugh. Enjoy the banter.

I have always disliked introductions. I have always said that introductions to classic texts such as these serve only one purpose. They ruin the story you are about to read.  
I have always maintained that if an introduction is going to discuss the plot, then said discussion should come in the form of an afterward or appendix, but no.  Your typical academic has to  shove the introduction into the few pages at the front of the text, just for the purpose of proving that they have actually read the massive tome, though in actual fact, they have more often than not merely read an overview of the novel.

This particular introduction will not do this, though I have of course read the book. You can role your eyes if you wish. I have read it, honestly.

First, I should probably give you a few words on the author, without giving away any spoilers, of course. 

Mr Willy Wonka is almost unknown  outside academic circles these days, though everyone is aware that he was the most profitable and celebrated  chocolateer of the twentieth century, gaining more fame and recognission  than Mr Cadberry, Mr Scharffen Burger and  even Mr Kipling himself. Sadly though, even the  brightests stars burn out one day, and after that rather unsavoury and well  publicised string of child murders in his chocolate factory, Willy Wonka’s fame began to dwindle, and by the dawn of the twenty  first century, he had become a forgotten man. Indeed, two decades after the year 2000 broke over the globe, Willy Wonka  had fallen into total obscurity, chocolate sails plummeting like a  rather unpleasantly shaped brick falling through a brittle glass window. And that is putting it mildly.

I myself hadn’t heard of the name or the many superlatives that had been heaped upon Mr Wonka’s character until that fateful day in my local college library, when I wandered aimlessly into the shelf lined building, looking for somewhere comfortable to lay down my weary head for a minute or two.

While strolling through the shelves, hand shoved carelessly into my pockets, I eventually happened upon a nice quiet corner where I could hopefully catch a few minutes of shut eye without anyone coming over to try and engage me in conversation.

I took my place at a round wooden table, one of those tables that can seat only a few people but often ends up seating an entire group of would be college scollers, and the first thing I noticed was a heavy hard backed novel resting upon the desk.

I pulled the  book towards me, intending to use the massive volume as a make shift pillow of sorts, but I paused for thought upon noticing the title,  embossed across the front in gold lettering.

‘Upstart Crow: An Autobiography of Willy Wonka.’

Now, that was interesting. Not interesting in the  way that popular science is interesting, but interesting in the way that the Tudors are interesting.

Intrigued beyond measure, an unusual emotion for someone such as me, I gave up on sleep in favour of reading this large volume. I had no idea who this Willy Wonka bloke was, but as I cracked open the ancient textbook, I had the sense that I was standing upon the threshold of a discovery of almost epic proporsions.

After flipping through the first few pages, I  decided upon the instant that this book had to be reprinted. One could not do anything else with such a   masterpiece of autobiographical prose. The fact that this Wonka bloke had been dead for years, and the fact that all royalties would thus be given to me didn’t even cross my mind as I picked up the book and left the dimly lit library without stopping to check the book out at the desk.

And so, here it is, ‘Upstart Crow,’ by Willy Wonka. Apart from this rather long introduction, I have changed nothing. The words have been left as the  rather odd man wrote them. Here is the harrowing yet  ultimately triumphant tale about a person who… ah, damn. I said I wasn’t going to give the plot away. It’s so easy to do. But Please do not worry. I won’t. I will be off now. Feel free to read at your  leasure and if you at any point grow angry, upset, worried or otherwise emotionally involved, do not be troubled. I experienced all of these emotions, and some other less coherent ones while reading this book.

Enjoy.

Murron Cain: Alumni of a university of little importance.


	2. Chapter 1: My birth and other matters.

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life story, or whether  that accolade will be granted to somebody else  is perfectly  obvious to anyone with a brain of a decent size, for why would any self respecting citizen  take up the pen and craft a detailed biography of his own personal life if that task would culminate in said citizen looking like an    idiot, plonker or wolly brain. Only an idiot, plonker or wolly brain would do such a thing, and I am not one of those. Let me assure you. 

You, the melodious reader of this hithertooo unpublished work of mine, know me as Mr Willy Wonka,   chocolatier  to rival even Mr Kipling  and inventer of some really amazing and truly wonderful things – other peoples’ words, not mine. You also may have heard by illustrious name in connection with dangerous jungle triversing and  the rescue of the entire Umpalumpa  race. You may wish to heap such praises upon my head as genious, adventurer and confectionary trail  blazer, and I would put up no struggle against such claims. Go ahead, do so.  

However, much to my dismay, I  haven’t always been such  an exentric wonder. Indeed, for many  years throughout a life that was not so much rocky, as mountainous, I was nothing but a struggling artist, desperate to gain the attention and adoration that I knew for a fact I deserved. And, by the way, that attention and adoration amounted to a bloody lot.

I always knew that I would eventually become someone of true worth, and I was  never overse to  making this self assurance known to the world.

“Do me a favour,” some of my fellow students said, for I did attend college you know, and gained a degree and everything, “you’re  having a laugh, aren’t you?”

Then, as if I truly had been making a joke, said students began to  laugh uproariously as if my ambissions lay within the  field of comedy rather than  inventing.

And all of this  humiliation happened on the very first day I stepped through the doors of the college that I attended – a building of terrifying significance that  shall become clear to you later. My overconfident  arigance quickly earned me the nickname ‘Upstart Crow.’

“Ah,” I said upon hearing the rumours of my new title, “I assume that with this nickname, you are comparing me to William Shakespear, a man who’s name was bismerched in the media but grew into a towering literary genious a few years later?” These words were said in  the carrying voice of the comedian who wishes everyone to hear his words, but many a true word is spoken in jest.

Again, that uproarious  laughter rang in my ears like the bells  on the hat of a poltergeist, and those who had blessed me with the nickname came forward  to reassure me.

“Nope,” they said scathingly, looking me up and down, which wasn’t hard back then as I was almost pathetically small for my age, “you’re just an obnoxious little bastard with a really irritating voice.”

It took me a while to process   the reasoning behind the nickname ‘upstart crow,’  and when I reached the dorm room that had been  designated to me and a few other sproglets  at my hitherto  unnamed college, I still didn’t get it. Crows didn’t have irritating voices, did they?

In  any event, we’re not discussing that now. I’m just allowing you to understand the reasons behind the title of this epic odyssey of  real life. ‘Upstart Crow’ was my nickname and that nickname stuck as the years went  on, until the name Willy Wonka began to mean something, that is.

I’m aware that you, reader, know very little of my life as yet, and that the platitudes  layed thick upon my character are many and profound. But within this novel, I hope to sweep away the cobwebs of doubt and   replace them with   illuminating tendrils of realisation. Over the years, many newspapers and journalists with nothing better to do and no morrel     integrity what so ever  have printed scandalous and slanderous stories about me. But I want to make things perfectly clear, that golden ticket incident wasn’t all my fault. This book is an attempt to  stop that speculation in its tracks,  to halt the constant  flowing of that chocolate waterfall that cherns the coco of ridicule, creating from that the sweet filled  nugget of misery and from that the factory of   supposition. It’s a lovely set of metaphors isn’t it? I am  rather good at those, let me tell you.

Anyway, back to me.

I was born in the year 1901, in the midst of the  celebration of Queen Victoria’s death. My parents were extreme anti-royalists, you see.   Being   relatively poor  people  lost in an ocean of  city bound unhappiness, they knew a moment or so of joyous rapture before the next  upper class blue blood was swarn in.

I am told that my birth was relatively easy. My mother –a gifted harp and lute player was   performing one of my father’s favourite lullabies when I was dragged from my mother’s womb by fate and deposited into the real world. Thus, I was brought into the collective imbrace of my family and learned to greatly appreciate the simple pleasure of good music and poetic verse.

Alas, I was never one for musical talent. As I was brought into the world, the only sounds I could make were cries a kin to those of a strangled animal, and angered by this less than  harmonic   kirkoffany, my father immediately left the house to do business abroad. Please do not feel sorry for me at this point. That sort of thing was often  done by stirdy British men at that time, even to sons who would one day become champions in the chocolate trade. I bet he regrets his abandonment of his son now, though.  

With my family’s name being Wonka, my father and mother put their heads together in order to choose a truly  splendiferous name for me. Eventually, after a few solid hours of thinking, they arrived at William. My father, ever the bluff old  deviant, decided that the name  William was far too formal for a son of his, and so the name was instantly shortened to Willy. And  so, Willy  Wonka became my given name. Please do not think that there weren’t jokes made about that name all of my life, reader, because there were. I mean, how many people could wander through society and get away with a stupid name like Willy Wonka? I certainly didn’t, until I became famous, that is. Then the name Wonka became cool. Who knew.  

So, with my father away abroad on business, I was left in the care of my mother, who’s adept parenting led her to the realisation that a child’s favourite food was chocolate. Bars and bars of chocolate. And these she would give me at regular intervals throughout the day. Thinking about it now, I believe that the early phases  of my admiration for chocolate led to  the chocolate addiction that almost ruined me finantially, physically  and psychologically. But I didn’t fuss over  such trifling things at that age. I continued in my chocolate eating habbit, knowing nothing else, and knowing that partaking in such inthusiasm  pleased my mother mightily.

I spent the first few months and years of my life in happy disregard for the brutality of twentieth century England that continued on around me. My mother shielded me from such gloomy prospects and kept me safe from all harm,  besides of course  the harm that  befalls all small children. In short, my  friends, my  childhood – or the early years of it, were spent happily amidst a sea of sunny expectation. And  those sunny expectations only grew brighter, when my little sister Wendy arrived on the scene, filling my world with more scrummdidliumpsious joy than one very small boy could cope with.


	3. Chapter two: Of family, fun and antics of future import.

I was playing in  my usual spot in the  pantry when my little sister Wendy was brought forth into the household. She too entered the world with a cry that  sounded rather like a strangled cat, but I was  instantly enchanted by her. She  had dainty hands and feet and a    small tuft of brown hair  atop her head. Indeed, to me she looked like an angel in baby form. Her protection was placed in my hands. What else was  a good boy of steady British stock to do when his little sister came into the world. I took up the task with a prayer and a  grateful heart, convinced that I could indeed take care of this charming girl by myself.

I must confess, I didn’t take care of little Wendy entirely on my own, though I may as well have done. My sister and I did infact have to contend with the ever present figure of a woman who was both furious in attitude and terrifying in counternance, who became our nanny of sorts.

This woman’s name was Melinda and I must say, my friens, that the question of how this woman got a job was a mystery to me. It still is, come to think of it.

Melinda was a monster, and I try not to use that word lightly. She was a woman given over to an unusual fascination with water. I don’t quite know why, as the water in those days was at the very least unpleasant, and at worst undrinkable. But this fact did not dampen her inthusiasm. She added water to everything she touched, ‘to water it down,’ so she often said.  If things felt too dry, she added water to it. If food tasted slightly too flavoursome, she added water to it. If There wasn’t enough stew, soup or hot chocolate to feed everyone, she would add water to it. Though she was indeed a resourceful old soul, I have to admit that she was little more than a battle axe. But I loved my mother, and I loved Wendy, and for them, I would have withstood any amount of torture or torment.

Ah, it’s a tragic state of afairs  isn’t it, my friends. Are you sad yet? I can picture you, wonderous reader of mine, sitting in your armchair, sofa or upon the floor, wherever you are, reading this book of mine with a distraught look upon your face. You think you’re sad right now, reader, just wait until later.  Trust me, there’s more to come, much much more. I have plenty more things to say.  Prepare to be truly amazed by both the wonderment and catastrofication of my young life. And yes, catastrofication is a word. I made the word up just now.

I tried to get young Wendy interested in chocolate. Many a sunny morning found me kneeling upon the floor in our expansive pantry,   trying to make her at least take a bite, to no avail what so ever.  She would become as much of a chocolate fan as I in years to come, but in  her infancy and toddler years, Wendy Wonka was a strict no chocolate eater.

My family may have now seemed complete in so much as I had as many mothers, fathers and little sisters as I was ever likely to have in the world, but at times, my life did indeed seem to be more broken and incomplete than most, due to the prolonged  absences of my father.

As I have already confessed, dear reader, my father was not too interested in family matters when I was brought forth into the world, but as  we, being  Wendy and I grew up, he tried his best to  fit in with the situation which he had abandoned more than two years prior.

However, he was often distant. He was a distant  man in a physical sense, what with his place of employment being approximately  four thousand miles away in the recently   discovered and subsequently acquired North Indies, where he worked as a commander in an upscale market focusing exclusively on good old capitalist exploitation of the lower classes, something that I disliked at the time but understand all-too well now adays. I and my sister missed our father, my mother missed  her husband and  since the man was a  combination of both father and husband, though he was obviously more of one than the other, it  lead to a life tinged with wistfulness and what Wendy and I frequently  called  saddingtons. But, dear reader,  such life time struggles and  grievences  lead in turn to Wendy and I becoming solid and self reliant members of society, so even the hardest of times result in the best outcomes.

Wendy and I managed to suffer  through our father’s  absenteeism with a smile and a prayer, a struggle   eased somewhat by the fact that he would often send  Wendy and I large parcels of money,  jewels and fine  silks from  over seas. Though the amounts of money were rather ridiculous, and though the jewels and silks were of  an obsurdly high quality, they gave  griedence to the oft-quoted saying ‘a  father’s love can be replaced with big bags of money,’ and  the frequently used slogon, ‘bags of money make the man.’

As my father’s income rose higher than the spires atop the roof of  Kensington palace, we were able to move into a house of more than adequate proportions. My mother,  Melinda, Wendy and I, Willy Wonka, moved with delight into Atley Manner, a  house with a   rabbit warren of large interconnecting rooms and extensive grounds covering  an area of ten akers.

The stretches  of  grassy lawn lent themselves to hours of unrestrained enjoyment and  pleasure for the little Wonkas and I became aware of lifting spirits and voices raised in enjoyment. Every child must feel enjoyment at times, even British children   growing up in the aftermath left by Queen Victoria, and my sister and I were no  acception to that rule.

Wendy and I were left to amuse ourselves during the long ans sultry golden afternoons of Summer, playing ruggers in the gardens and splashing each other with cold jets of water that could be found in the garden’s ornamental fountain. When the weather would not permit us to spend our time outdoors, we retreated with  equal pleasure to the labyrinthine coridors and passages of Atley manner, playing  games of a more gentle nature that would not upset the vases, portrates or figurenes that my mother was so fond of.

Life was splendid. Where some families struggled for the most basic luxuries in life, our home brimmed with plenty. While some children ate only bread and butter of a morning, we gulped down chocolate porridge and swigged hot  chocolate by the mug  full. While many  youngsters  of a  similar age to Wendy and I bathed but once a year ina filthy stream or small tin bath, we washed ourselves  in a  bath tub filled with liquid chocolate.  We slept upon matresses of goose down, so luxurious that often, we refused to get out of bed until Melinda forced us to comply. Oh, how we would laugh as our merry antics agrovated her, that is, until she started screaming, when at that point we would stop laughing and start crying.

I know what you are  thinking, reader, I  am sure. You’re thinking that this childhood bliss is merely a beginning to a life filled  with fun and rapturous merriment. But you would of course be wrong. The suffering and pain will  arrive, but it must wait, dear reader, until it is invited into the narrative. Unfortunately for me, said pain and suffering is knocking insistently upon  the ink stained door, and I fear that it is time to allow its entry, whether I like it or not.


	4. Chapter three: Employment and other splendiferous delights.

I like lingering in the good and jolly times, dear reader. Remaining firmly in the past allows me to temporarily forget the pain, which is deep and profound. But I’m afraid that we can linger in the summer sunshine only a few paragraphs longer, before I have to recount the sad way in which life came crashing down upon me.

So yes, for a few years at least, Wendy and I pranced merrily through our lives, always happy and rarely sad. My first two years spent with my dear mother, Battle   Axe Milly as we had  dubbed her, and Wendy by my side were spent in bliss and tranquillity. I have already said before that we were frollicsom children, Wendy and I, and whenever our father saw it fit to bless us with his presence, he threw a flame of revelry into our lives. He would walk through the door, his cases brimming over with treasures and gifts, and we would eagerly gather to hear everything that he had to say, at which point we would bounse with happification. Yes. Happification is a word as well. I’m so good at this word craft thing, don’t you think?

Anyway, I remember one particular paternal visit very well indeed. I had reached what I believed to be the grand old age of five years, with Wendy being a mere year below me in age. It was a gloriously sunny afternoon and Wendy and I had just returned from a hard day’s playing of ruggers in the garden, when we saw mother standing at the door with the widest smile that I had ever seen plastered across her face.

“Ah, my bonnie little beauties,” she had cried, spreading her arms wide as if to invelopp the entire world in an embrace, “your dearest father has come home and is waiting for you in the front room. Go in and see him.”

Our cries of jubilation and rapturocity – another word I’ve just made up, were unrestrained as we legged it towards the living room, catching sight of our father in his complete business manager’s regalia. He beamed at us, showing every one of his pearly white teeth even when he wasn’t yet talking.

When he did open his mouth and start speaking, his voice boomed grandly around the large and brightly lit living room.

“Ah, my perfect little  candy man,” he cried in joy, intangling me in a tight hug and  using the name that had grown popular in my household due to my recent decision to begin inventing chocolate based delights of my own.  “Ah, my little fairy,” he added, imbracing Wendy who beamed up at him. He let both of us go, smiling fondly. “It is so good to see you.”

“And it is equally joyous to see you, papa,” I said with glee.

Father bent down towards a bulging bag at his feet. “I have gifts for my candy man and for my fairy,” he told us, producing the gifts and lapping up our appraisals.

I had been given a thick leatherbound notebook imbossed with gold lettering. A closer inspection of the book told me that the golden lettering spelled out my own name, plus a few platitudes that warmed my heart upon the instant. ‘Willy Wonka,’ the words read, ‘candy maker extraordinaire.’ I rather liked that.

Wendy had been given a neckless of twenty four carrot gold, complete with egg sized diamond that caused my little sister to squeal with delight. “Oh, it’s beautiful, papa,” she told him joyously, slipping the neckless about her slender neck and clapping her hands with joy.

I watched this interaction, glad to be a part of a family such as ours.

We were to have many more paternal reunions such as these, my father and we children. But every good thing must come to an end, dear reader of mine. My own good things came to a distinctly  abrupt and anti-positive end a mere year later when my stirdy British family decided that I had reached the correct age of employment. I had now reached the grand old age of  six and according to   early twentieth century British tradition, this was the optimum time for young lads like my good self to hurry up and find a job.

Thus I was ussured forth into the jolly old world of employment, working long hours in the recently acquired factories, slaving away for the upper class twits for  naught but pitence.  Though our work place was fraught both with difficulty  and dangerous situations, I stuck it out like a good lad and continued on with a smile, a prayer  and  a small repitoir of songs that drove my kind hearted employers to distraction. Needless to say, I chose to show my gratitude for the pain, ridicule and character building lack of wages by bursting into song as often as was possible.

But, my friends, there was one  tantilising ray of sunshine on the granet grey horizon  of my existence in what was now Edwardian Britain, and that was the chocolate factory. Ah, the chocolate factory. I had worked in several different types of factory during my long years of employment before the brutality of school and college life beckoned, and I reckoned I had come across every type of factory. But I was wrong. This factory was one  of glorious  expectations and before I knew it, I was clambering to be a part of its inner workings.

A bolt of weak sunlight penetrated the thick bank of clouds that had become my working life when I was accepted into the chocolatey imbrace of the factory of my dreams. Whilest there, I was able to put my chocolate making skills to relatively good use. I crafted new types of chocolate bars, created delishiously   tantilising sweets filled with creamy goodness  and rose higher up the ranks of chocolatere.

My work life steadily improved as my fellow employees and employers became aware of my skills, but alas, even these good things had to come to an end. This chocolate based enjoyment came to an end upon the death of my father, which was  to send my mother, Wendy and I into a tail spin of utter despair and anti  jollification. And that, dear reader, is putting it  mildly.


	5. Chapter four: Pain and Misery are   invited into the narrative.

A whole year passed, and then another. In great dollops of time, three years more passed and  then a fourth.  The single year that followed all of these brought me to the age of thirteen, a perfect age to begin university life. I was much taller than I had been previously, head held high with eagerness and soul grown robust with endless undiscovered potential.

 But I could not even begin to dwell upon matters of academia or self improvement, as  the year that marked my thirteenth birthday, also marked the year that brought about my dearest father’s  tragic death.

I remember the  moment of horrified realisation with perfect clarity. I  and Wendy had been enjoying a Sunday off, for she had since started work as well, performing minor womanly tasks for  some  old bag across the road – her words, not mine,  and I was still working at the chocolate factory, rising to the rank    of sienier chocolatere. We had been laughing about a joke that Wendy had just told and could not see a grey cloud on the horizon. A parcel of money and silks had just arrived from father’s place of work, and mother had been examining these in the next room.

Suddenly, like a banchee in the night, her screams wrent the air around us, accompanied shortly after by a loud crash as she threw the living room door  open and marched into the room.

Wendy and I looked up with streaming eyes, tears of merth  making  glistening tracks down our cheeks, tears that would soon be joined by plenty of others, these with emotions that were of an opposite kind to the happy ones.

“Children!” mother cried, throwing her hands into the air in anguish uncontained, tears sliding relentlessly down her own cheeks, “I have terrible news. Your father is dead.”

Those desperate words fell upon horrified ears and Wendy and I exchanged looks  of appalled surprise. The silence that followed was of an oppressively heavy  nature and it seemed like an hour of frozen time passed  before any sound penetrated the emptiness that had been left in the wake of mother’s words.

As was customary for the men folk  in Britain back then, I retained a stoney face throughout, projecting the outward appearance of a  young man who has accepted the truth of  that statement with a sense of strength and dignity. Inside, though, I felt my happiness crumble into dust. I struggled against the tears that threatened to overwhelm me, and was glad  that the unmanly act of crying did not betray my rising feelings of anxiety. .

Wendy though was not constrained by the Edwardian traditions of Britain, and in moments, she fell  apart. Collapsing into a storm of tears, Wendy threw up her own hands, loud sobs echoing through the living room. It seemed to me as if Wendy was showing both her own emotion and the emotions that I was not permitted to show, and I was  grateful for the distraction that she offered the family. Mother  swooped down upon her, infolding my sister in a hug that could have crushed her rib cage, and I was able to gather together  the remainder of my resolve and sit up a little straighter.

As I   sat in the expensive armchair that had  been  given to us by our father, I  became aware of the responsibilities that had just landed like a led balloon upon my shoulders, burdening a young man such as me with pressures beyond what I had been used to.

This, dear reader, was the first glimpse of the pain that was to  become a part of my life from that afternoon onwards. I knew that  from now on, my life was to change dramatically. Though my father had been a distant man, he had nevertheless taught me how to be a British man in a british world, and I knew by then how to stand upon my own two feet. I was determined to stand in just such a position, and I was similarly determined to pull my distraught sister and grief stricken mother through the pain. I no longer had the option of leaving the practicalities of life in  the Wonka family to someone else. I had to take up the slack, as it were.

“How did it happen, mother?” I asked, determined to get this rather unpleasant part of the grieving process over with as quickly as possible.

Mother drew in a deep steadying breath before replying. “Workers revolution, my dear,” she told me flatly, brandishing the letter as if desperate for me to take it from her hands, lest she be burned by its touch. “Apparently, they stormed management head quarters, killed everybody inside and made off with the coffers and as much jewelry as they could lay their thieving hands upon. We are fortunate that our gifts managed to escape the clutches of those fellens. We really are fortunate. Now, we have something that shall forever remind us of your poor dear father.”

And she collapsed into grief once again, leaving me to contemplate this rather  unsavory explanation of my father’s demise. It was a tragic thing, reader. It really was a tragic thing.

“I have written to my brother, dear children,” mother sobbed,  lifting her head from my sister Wendy’s hair and glancing at me, “and he has   promised to come here post haste to help us run the house.”

I felt a ball of dread and trepidation  sinking into the pit  of the stomach that  normally ached with  the after effects of laughter. I knew who my mother’s infamous brother was, and the notion that he was indeed to become a  more integral part of family life did not fill me with anything close to pleasure. In fact, the notion of the man’s iminant arrival filled me with  horror, anger and  frustration tempered partly  from  the many times I had heard  his name during long hours spent working at  the chocolate factory.

Arthur Slugworth. A name that was every bit as unpleasant as the odious man himself.

Slugworth was a name that inspired  hatred and fury within the heart and soul  of everyone who worked at the chocolate factory. Indeed, the man was said to be a rival of our own quickly growing company. Total rot, of course. Slugworth’s  medioker efforts within the field of chocolate making  didn’t in any way compare with the  efforts of me and my colleagues, yet people seemed to view the man’s work with something close to reverence. Idiots, every one of them.

I could not stay in the living room any  longer. The notion of Arthur  Slugworth and his installation  into our house and family unit had filled me with white hot rage, and I moved as if in a dream towards the door, now ignoring the anguished sobs of the woman and the child whom I had now swarn inside my head to protect with my life and loyalty.

Once I arrived at  the safety and  seclusion of my bedroom, I  sank with shakey legs onto my bed, my head dropping heavily into my hands as I gave way to my grief. Though British etiket did not allow me to cry in public, nothing in the rule book of tradition said that I could not cry in private. So I gave up the struggle to cntain  my resolve. I wept bitter tears, salty rivers flowing from my eyes as I sobbed. My father had left a rather sizeable hole in my knowledge of the world and I knew that the arrival of Arthur Slugworth was only going to smash an even greater hole    through my   defences.

 My  sobs  redoubled as I considered that fact. There was no way in which the arrival of Slugworth would  remain a secret. The man was infamous as I have said, and as a result, my employers would soon become all-too aware of the man’s  existence within the Wonka family. They would not allow me to live that down. They would more than likely sack me from my  prestigious job at the  chocolate factory – something that  filled me with dread. The name of Wonka – a name that  was still rising within the field of chocolate making would more than likely fade into  obscurity. There was no way in hell that Arthur Slugworth would ever allow my name to grow more popular than his. He would  bismerch the name of Wonka, and trample my reputation into the mud. With no reputation, I would be unable to make money of a  sufficient amount to adequately feed and  clothe my family.

 What was a young man to do? I had  not the faintest idea. But I had to do something, anything, to help my family.

But first, I had to properly gage and  assess the situation, and I could only succeed in doing that  once Slugworth entered our home. I felt as  if I could wait for an eternity for that day, but in truth, I would only have to wait two days more before the blackest of storm clouds appeared above the heads of everyone in the Wonka household.


	6. Chapter five: Arthur Slugworth and the Art of Ruination.

The morning of Arthur Slugworth’s arrival dawned as dark and forboding as the  events which proceded it.

For two days prior to the man’s arrival, we had been making our home ready for him. Mother and Wendy had set to cleaning the house from top to bottom, and I, as was customary, had taken to my bedroom for a bout of sulking. Mother loved the man as if he was her brother, which he was, and Wendy as yet knew nothing what so ever of Slugworth and his crimes against confectionary. I knew too much,  however, and couldn’t bring myself to join in their anticipation of his return to the family fold. I stayed within the confines of my dimly lit bedroom with the door tightly closed,  listening to the clatters of preparation and wishing that we  were accepting anybody else into our home.

At  three in the afternoon, he arrived, and he arrived with a     commotion and a great deal of attention.

The entirety of the Wonka family gathered in the largest of the drawing rooms to welcome Arthur Slugworth  into our home. We sat in silence, each avoiding the other’s eyes until the low rumble of carriage wheels alerted us to the presence of the man  outside our door. Looking round, Wendy and I caught sight of a guilded carriage standing outside, drawn by four chestnut geldings. As I watched intently, the doors opened and a man  emerged into  the  open air, laidened with gloom. I looked away, no longer able to stand the sight of him.

“He  is here,” my mother commented a tad unnecessarily, “Wendy, be a love and fetch the tea.”

Obeying  upon the instant, Wendy complied and left the room in order to fetch the tea. She closed the door behind her, leaving mother and I in quiet contemplation.

Moments later, the door opened once more. Looking up, I marvelled at my little sister’s spead, before realising that it was not Wendy standing on the  threshold. The figure standing upon the doorstep did not  in any way resemble my sister,  and as if the visual proof was not enough, the  milevelant laugh that burst forth from the man’s lips was enough to make me certain that Slugworth was now a solid presence in our home. I fixed my eyes upon this man as he stood there like a malicious painting, tall, dark and unpleasant in every aspect. 

The laughter rolled on like thunder. What was funny, I wondered. I saw nothing to be laughing about. Perhaps he wasn’t really laughing. Perhaps the laughter was just a manly  attempt at hiding his emotions. Perhaps the laughter was due merely to the gentleman’s emotions being repressed so deep that they morfed from overwhelming grief into something else entirely.  

His words, however, dispelled that idea like fog in a furnace.

“Ah, Margary,” he said  in a voice as soft as a concrete blanket, stepping forward and imbracing my mother who squeezed him back, sobbing  delicately as she did so, “it is a  relief to  see you  again. How are you?”

Mother could only smile at him, seeing not the smile of what could only be described  as Schadenfreude that twisted his mouth and  glittered in his eyes. “Dear Arthur,” she proclaimed, “it’s good to see you too. It has been too long.” She pointed at Wendy and me. “These are my children.  You won’t have met them before. This is my daughter Wendy, and my  son  Willy.”

I felt Slugworth’s eyes upon me and had to fight to prevent my body from shrinking back instinctively. Those eyes bore into the depths of my soul as  we stared at each other  like two wolves from rival packs. Those eyes were as dark as pools of pitch and I faught to remain calm. It wasn’t working particularly well.  He wasn’t to be thee first to look away.

“I have not met you before, young Willy,” he told me in a voice of ice, “but I have heard your name. Are you by any chance the same  Willy Wonka  who’s chocolate  recipes are so popular in London these days?”

I  said nothing. I wasn’t sure what the best thing to say would be. I was indeed that same Willy Wonka, but I didn’t at all know whether I should inform him of that fact.

Mr Slugworth seemed to have taken my uncertain silence as ascent. He stepped away from  my mother and towards me, eyes glinting  with dark fury. “I thought so, young man,” he told me furiously. He shot me a deadly smile. “I have heard a great deal about your skills in the confectionary field, Master Wonka,” he  said quietly, “and trust me, I  d not at all like it. People are telling me that young Willy Wonka is a genious, and  trust me, young man, I do not at all like geniouses.”

He stopped there, no  longer needing to say anything more. I already knew what the man was thinking and it filled me with horrified stupification. He had not   any need to inform me that he  was out to ruin what little fame I had gained throughout London. He didn’t have to say that he was going to ensure that I payed dearly for the fact that he, Slugworth that is, had lost a little of his own  notoriety due to my rising success, and he certainly didn’t have to tell me that in order to bring ‘the little upstart’ down, he was going to ensure that I wasn’t around to challenge him further.

 I didn’t at that moment know in what form my downfall would take, but I was sure that Arthur Slugworth – the man who was to become my chief rival in the later years of my life, was going to make sure that justice in so far as he knew it, would be swift and brutal.

And swift and  brutal it would certainly be. Swift, and brutal, and not entirely without pain and ridicule.  

My mother and younger  sister seemed not to have noticed my  interactions with Mr Slugworth. They had been  busying themselves with the serving of afternoon tea at the time and before I could make them aware of any  ill feeling, tea had been poured and it was time to once again return to good old English civility. I  mindlessly joined in with the pleasantries of the people around me, unable to rid my roiling  thoughts of that unspoken threat. I laughed in the correct  places, my voice sounding as bright and hollow as a light bulb to my own ears, and  made sure to project the  outward appearance of  welcoming  happiness  towards the man who was determined to personally  aukistrate my  ruination. Though mother  and Wendy seemed not to have noticed, I knew that the crafty  old  bastard was not  fooled. His eyes followed my every move and his laughter rang in my head like the toaling of my own death bell.

Little did I know that I would feel his eyes upon me for many years to come, and little was I aware that for the  next half century or so,  I would be  reduced to always looking over my shoulder, watching carefully for an attempt on my life and livelihood. Oh, how sweet innocence fails to prepare us for the future. 


	7. Chapter six: Some comments on the times.

I do  hope you have stuck with me thus far, reader, because there’s lots more to come. I’m sure that bye now, you are aware that the life of  the chocolate making genius  that  was me, and is still me, was fraught with difficulty from an early age. And indeed it was. But what of the times that I lived in?

I’m sure that  everyone who  has kept up with the chronology of this story knows that by the time my thirteenth year rolled around, the  callinder had taken us  to the year 1914. As the history buffs of the world are also aware, 1914 was a year of unpresidented struggle and toil for much of Europe. Wendy and I, being of an upstanding and upper middle class British family, were in constant receipt of information from the outside world and the unfolding conflict between Britain, France, Germany and other   worldly  powers was certainly no mystery to us.

As the grief of our father’s passing faded into a  somewhat bareable ache, we lost ourselves in the newspapers, discussing the  escalating drama with keen interest, glad for something to distract ourselves from the struggles of our personal lives.

It seemed to Wendy and I that  the strife within Europe was growing day by day. Every time we opened the newspapers,  another difficulty had taken over the headlines. I was growing uneasy. I knew of course that Britain was a powerful nation with considerable strength at her disposal, so I was at that moment sure that we at least would have the power to  aukistrate some sort of peaceful settlement between Germany and her enemies.

 But  alas, I was woefully wrong. The violence came to an abrupt and bloody end in Sarajevo, upon the shooting of Austria’s crown prince. That  single violent action was enough to light the fuze on the bomb that had been primed and waiting. From that moment on, the world was plunged into war.

Wendy and  I read   about the following events in the newspapers until the paper printed on the   fourth of August showed me precisely what my country was dealing with. Britain had declared war on Germany and on Kaiser Wilhelm and at that moment,   my  certainty crumbled.

Luckily for me, I was too young in 1914 to go to war along with the rest of the soldiers who bravely signed up to try to put an end to the bloody violence. I watched the trains pass every morning, piled with equipment, soldiers and supplies  to be taken to the front lines and every time I watched one of these trains, my heart sank a little further. Our understanding of the goings on at the front  was slight at best, and yet I worried. As  it turned out, very few of those men would ever return home to our proud motherland.  The war that would rage on  until 1918 would tear the nation apart.

Because of the great demand for munitions, weapons and soldiers, the  nonesentual factories closed or took up the  challenge of providing arms and ammunition to the army. As a result, my own job was forfit and I found myself without work. There was of course no need for a chocolatere during a bloody and violent European war and I took this loss in good part, as anyone would.

I instead  chose to participate in factory work of another kind. In a desperate  need to do something to help my fellow countrymen, I took up the task of assisting in the creation and production of ammunition, glad that I could at least help with the war effort,  as every good citizen would.

I wasn’t the only one. To  my  astonishment and utter incredulity, Wendy  joined the campaign to keep the war going, and worked in the munitions factories along side other women. At first, I was horrified, for surely  women had no place in a factory such as the ones that worked with dangerous chemicals, but as time went on and Wendy honed her craft for solid and hard graft, I came to  respect her for it. She was a spirited little soul, my sister, and she was certainly not  the type of person who would be content to sit at home while the men folk went to  work.

“This work will help to improve the lives of women everywhere,” she often told me once we  had returned home, “I’ll carry on until we have won this war.”

I was proud of her efforts. Though a considerable number of males across Britain resented and despised the fact that the women were determined to prove their mettle, I was not one of these. We had been brought up well, Wendy and I, and society’s prejudices in no way interested us. The war was what we cared about, and winning it was at the forfront of our minds. We cared for nothing else.

During this chaotic time, Arthur Slugworth continued to remain at the house, making sure that we ‘behave ourselves,’ as he so wisely put it. Wendy and I found  ourselves treading upon egg shells when in his company. He lost no time in informing  me of the fact that he was glad the chocolate factory had  temporarily gone out of business, and I tried my best to ignore these gloating reminders. He tried every day to provoke me, and  failed every time. I kept my silence, working at the factories and ensureing that Wendy too remained safe.

It  turned out, though, that I would not have to remain in  Atley manner for very much longer. In 1915,  everything changed. My  fourteenth year brought about a momentus shift in my life, and said shift was to take the form  of a move to college. ‘Many struggles make the man,’ Slugworth had  often told me, and the   year or so spent at college was certainly going to be a struggle. Though I hate to give the man any kind of complement, I do have to admit that the  many struggles did indeed make the man. They also spawned my hatred for Arthur Slugworth and everything he stood for, and my little trip to college was to ramp up our rivalry and fudiing to  completely improper levels.


	8. Chapter seven: Many struggles make the man.

1915 dawned with a distinct lack of sunshine and hope for all concerned. The British people had been soled the idea that the great war would be over by Christmas the year before, but this was not to be. The war continued far away, touching the lives of all who came into contact with it, whether they had lost loved ones overseas or not.

In the Wonka household, the strife did not stop at the stone walls of Atley manner.

The  hallways that had once echoed with the sounds of laughter, now brimmed over with misery and despair. We would sit in sorrowful contemplation in one room, then grow tired of its interior and exit, purely for the purpose of being miserable and woful in the corridor.  

Slugworth remained a member of the Wonka household as the grief left behind by my father’s death slowly sank in. My mother was driven mad by grief, retreating into a cupboard where she sat wrapped in  worries and  swadled in sorrow. Weeks went by and Wendy and I refused to give in. We visited her as many times a day as we could, and after a while, she failed to recognise us. We had become but strangers to her,  heightening  the grief  that had left a scar on our hearts.

Arthur Slugworth was making things no better. “It was his own fault really,” he told me once, “a  bloody idiot, your father. But now he’s dead. No loss, really.”

Wendy, somehow emboldened by the movement that was set to lift women up the political and social ladder, chimed in and said, “it is a loss for us, Mr Slugworth.”

My kind hearted uncle was softened not one bit. He glowered at my sister and smiled as she shrank from him, courage forgotten. “Cowards, ay?” he asked with a evident snear. He then turned those charcoal eyes upon me. “I would try and remember to seace with this open rebellion against me, son,” he told me coldly,                 “because things are going to change around here. They are going to change dramatically. From now on, I am going to be the head of the family. You can trust me on that score.”

 Slugworth was better,  or worse in my opinion,  than his word. He did exactly that and infinitely more  besides. Despite the fact that I was father’s son and  heir, Slugworth took over the running of our household. Finantual control was given to him by the disreputable courts of law, and Wendy and I were to become no more than shadows of our former selves.  

Just  a few  short months after my mother took to the safety of her cupboard, he took me aside and announced that I was not to work at the munitions factory any longer either, instead dropping the heaviest of bomb shells directly into my unwary lap.

“I have now signed the ownership of this house over to myself,” Slugworth told me, snearing as he did so, in much the same way as a rather unpleasant child would.

I was growing weary of the man’s attitude. “Surely as his heir it is mine,” I asked out loud, for I had only asked this question in my head prior to  this conversation.

Slugworth shot me a  stare and shook his head. “No,” he replied, “not until you’re sixteen, young William. Until then, this  house is in my name, meaning that I control your father’s bank account and all of his assets.” He gave me a look then that did unnerve me a little. “This means to, that I have full control  over  your life and of the life  of your sister as well.”

“Oh?” I asked, growing  bolder as I realised that he was making the attempt to  threaten the  well being of my sister, “and what do you plan to do with us?”

Slugworth smiled as Wendy entered the room at an   inconveniently impractical time. She glanced at me, then at Slugworth, clearly wondering what in the name of God was going on. “You, William are going to go to college. I have selected a   perfect college  in which you can study.”

I  shrugged. College. That didn’t sound too bad. “And Wendy?” I asked.

“Your sister will live with me,” Slugworth said coldly, mouth twisting upwards into the type of smile that I would have dearly loved to hit with a brick, “that is, until she is old enough to be married off or soled to a high class public house.”

Wendy’s face went  pale. She seemed  to be growing  angrier with every second that passed. “No,” she cried, using some more of  the strength that the Suffragette movement had  instilled in her, “never, I tell you. I will never leave our home.”

Slugworth was not at all moved. “Do not defy me, young Wendy,” he warned.

Wendy burst into furious sobs. “Never, I tell you, never!” she screamed, bolting for the door and out of the house.  In doing this, she did precisely what she said she would never do. Although I suspected that when she said ‘home,’ she had included the extensive grounds in that  statement, in  which case if she didn’t run too far, she would probably be  fine.

“Let her run,” Arthur Slugworth growled, “it changes nothing.”

I stood in shock for a moment, my sister’s sweet face taking up residence in the forfront of my mind. That image of her sadness was threatening to overwhelm me, that expression of sadness a kin to that of  a penguin with a fish allergy.

Now it was just Slugworth and I, alone in the same room. He stood there, motionless, staring at me starily and distaining at me distainfully. I  slowly grew uncomfortable. I stood there, glaring at him  angrily and watching him intently.

“Right then, time for college, young man,” Slugworth told me  briskly, clapping his hands together, “there is no   need to pack. I have already done it for you. Your case is at the door along with a carriage that is ready and waiting for you.”

I   drooped like a wilting flower in the full force of the summer sun. I now had no choice. College was going to be my lot.

As I walked down the corridor and towards the door from which my poor sister had disappeared, I reflected upon my  obsurdly disasterous situation. I realised then that I had very little idea of  what college life would be like. I am sure I had thought it would be awful. I’m sure that I thought it would be terrifying and I definitely did not at all think it was going to be full of laughter, jollification or that happiest of words  oo-goshi -ah bliss – a word that is no longer in common  usage either by the British or any other nation.

I stepped out of my front door and into the street, looking around me  and catching sight of the carriage that was indeed waiting for me. Wendy was nowhere to be seen, and so I was unable to have even the most preliminary  farewells with her. My heart felt as heavy as  one of those concrete slabs that help to form the foundations of a stirdy British house. I wondered at that moment when I would next see Wendy. I hoped that it wouldn’t be too long.

I clambered into the carriage, begrudgingly accepting my fate and settling  onto the cushened seat, closing the door behind me. I knew that there was no use in attempting to escape the fate that had been shoved my way. I could only sit back as comfortably as I could and  accept the truth for what it was. I had no idea how long I would have in terms of hours and  minutes before I  would be expected to appear before the college lecturers with a calm and collected attitude, but I knew that I had to pull myself together and get on with it.

And, dear reader, I would have to get on with it, no matter how dismal by lot in life became, for it would indeed become very terrible indeed.


	9. Chapter eight: In which the mood is lifted not one bit.

Ans so, reader, I was imprisoned in an old and rather battered carriage, on my way to college – an institution that I knew almost nothing about. While working at the chocolate factory, I had briefly come across a  young boy who had been inrolled at Harrow, and he had wasted no time in telling me how fun it all was, that is, if you didn’t mind the beatings, the lack of proper food, the endless hours of relentless toil and the  soul sucking misery.  Alas, I  remembered all of these things, and alas again, the college in which I was to attend was not quite as fun  or enjoyable as colleges such as Harrow. Though I  knew it would not be much fun, I had no idea that I was in fact on my way to the worst and most feared college in the whole of Britain, no, the whole ofGreat Britain and her empires as well, actually. This was  a grey bricked   building known and revered by all who stepped through its gates.  Saint Dickhead’s college in  Oxford.

Even now,  many years of frivolity and laughter later, just writing tose hateful words is enough to make me shudder. In a  few short paragraphs, and some rather long paragraphs, you will see precisely what I mean and why writing the name of my college still makes me shudder even now.

Anyway, back to my harrowing journey. The long treck to Saint Dickheads took  two entire days, and only one night. Every few hours, the wild eyed and hard faced  coachman would clamber down from   his position behind the horses and pull the door open, throwing me some tiny morsels of food  as if keeping me alive was a chore for him, which it probably was. Upon each short opening of the carriage door, I caught glimpses of the world beyond my violently rocking prison, and I took note of the fact that there was  greyness all around me, grey skies, grey buildings, grey streets and grey sheets of rain cascading down from the gloomy heavens. The greyness was strangely in sink with my somber mood and I smiled ironically to myself.

We travelled onward seacelessly,  the carriage moving at a spead to the tune of three horse powers, despite the fact that the carriage was being pulled by  four horses. It seemed to me later   that one of the horses  wasn’t precisely keen on this carriage pulling thing.

Finally, the carriage halted once again, and the coachman threw the door open. This time, instead of hurling some  morsel of literal mud pie or actual gravel flavoured bread my way, he grabbed me by the left arm and hurled me in the general direction of the ground.

Alas, he did not miss his aim. “Ou,” I cried as my limbs and aching head hit the stoney and extremely hurty ground, “what did you do that for? There was no need for that, surely?”

“Shut it,” replied the coachman, speaking to me for the first time and revealing a mouth filled with broken teeth.

“Are we at the college?” I asked.

The coachman replied in the affirmative without words, but with a jesture towards a sign made of rotting wood. ‘Saint Dichheads College,’ the sign read in a curiously aggressive font and writing style. The very sign filled me  with foreboding as I picked myself up from the dirty ground and dusted myself off.

Turning round to face the coachman once again, I cursed my British politeness and said, “thanks, mate.”

The coachman gave me another unpleasant smile. Reaching out one hand, he ruffled my hair, then reached out the other hand and punched me hard in the face. I said  ‘ouch’ again and he laughed,  releaseing me and shoving me roughly towards the building that stood behind the rotting wooden sign.

He then stepped away from me, clambering up into the driver’s seat once  again and drove away, leaving me alone. I stood in silence, slowly becoming aware of the sounds of sobs. It was me. With a loud rumble of thunder and a slanting stab of forked lightning, the very heavens began to cry in sympathy. ‘Ah,’ I thought ryley, ‘the empathetic British weather.’

The rain poured down from the heavy skies, sliding down my cheeks and   performing a quick step down my back. A loud crack and a streak of electric silver flashed across the skies once again.

For the first time, I was able to see  the college building in clarity. The iron gates looked very sinister indeed, and as if the spiked ironwork wasn’t enough, the motto enscribed atop the twisted spires of the gates was  enough to shake me to my core, which it of course did. ‘per orationem, per dolorem,’ or ‘by praying, by pain.’

I dearly wished I could turn and run for the hills, or indeed a flat piece of ground that was mercifully distant from this awful place. But my college it was, and enter it I must.

 I took  a  somewhat shakey step forward, my body desperately trying to leave my furvent mind behind it, but failing miserably. I looked up  again, and  caught sight of the gargoils. No  seemingly evil place was  entire without them, and these ones were complete with features that seemed to have been plucked from hell itself. I  looked away, not wishing to look any longer.

I took a few more halting steps  forward and before  I was completely aware, I was safely, or unsafely in my opinion, inside the college grounds.

All was decilate and awful. I walked on, putting the iron gates behind  me and wandering aimlessly towards the  door that would lead into the inner area of the college itself. The quietness pressed in upon me. All was still besides the soft patter of the rain, the gentle sounds of my sobs and the desperate cries of  sorrow wthin the building. So, it was actually quite noisey.

As I approached the inner doors of  Saint Dickheads college, a tall figure stepped out of the shelter of the grey bricked building, beckoning for me to make my way towards him. This, I did with my heart pounding, my stomach cherning and my liver doing cartwheels. Was this figure the physical personification of death itself? He certainly looked like it.

Nevertheless, I followed him in. He led me  down a long corridor in absolute silence, offering me not a word of reassurance or ranker. I think in retrospect that the silence was probably worst than anything he could have  said out loud.

We walked down the corridor, the man striding ahead of me, casting shadows upon the walls as we went. As we walked, I had the opportunity to glance up at the pictures decorating the  walls, and trust me, reader, the grusom images pasted across the stonework was enough to cause me to break down completely, but only mentally of course, as back in 1915, it was still basically illegal for a man to cry.

The first image that caught my eye, was labled ‘armament practice.’ This image depicted the  college lecturers firing  what appeared to be live ammunition upon students who were all lined up with varying degrees of shock and fright upon their faces. The next was entitled ‘college play, live action gladiators vs lions.’ This one was easily the most awful. The boys in the picture were dressed up as gladiators, and the lions were being played by lions. My already swollen fear fled to be replaced by a shreaking terror and a violently wobbling panick. Where in the name of  hell had I been  sent to? Why in the name of hell did Slugworth want me to be inrolled in a place  such as this?

Then I knew. Well, not exactly. I think that I knew what the bastard’s intentions were the moment I caught sight of the latin motto atop the college gates, but I was more or less certain now. Slugworth wanted his chocolate making rival out of the picture in a more   permanent sence. Perhaps he even wished me to take part in the sorts of college drama productions  that were depicted upon these very walls.

The silent man who was leading me onward suddenly turned aside and opened a door  that led off the long corridor, beckoning for me to enter behind him. This particular door had a plack upon it  that read ‘head master,’ and I followed the man inside, glad that he was just a mere human after all.

The room belonging to the head master was dimly lit in the   extreme and as I stepped in, I caught a glimpse of row upon row of books, none  of which I could see clearly. Wordlessly, the  head master directed me towards a chair, sitting down himself and fixing me with a stare. I stared back, refusing to surrender to my rising tide of panick.

For a few seconds longer, we continued to stare each other out, and in that moment, I was reminded  of Arthur Slugworth. Were these two related, I wondered.

In time, I was to find out that  these men were not in fact related, just   incredibly good friends. Thinking about it now,  knowing those two were friends was  quite  bad enough for me, thank you.


	10. Chapter nine: A feeling of trepidation hightened some more.

I have met many people during my more than  seventy years on this earth, dear reader of mine, if you’re still there in any case. Anyway. Yes. I have met numerous different types of people, and this man was perhaps the oddest I’d met thus far. Mind you, I’d only spent fourteen  unglorious years on this  Earth by this time, so that was  probably not much of a surprise.

Anyway, the head master of Saint Dickheads sat down opposite me, and I watched as his face completely changed, both in expression and general appearance. I now saw a pair of eyes bright with laughter, a face adorned with a genuine smile and a mouth that was twisted upwards in a manner that was not exactly unfriendly.

My terrible terror and rising panick quietened in unison, and I began to let my guard drop slightly, hoping against hope that  my initial assessment of this man was at least half incorrect.

“Well,” the head master told me in a voice as bright and good humoured as his smile, “you must be young William Wonka. Am I right?”

My terror subsided completely like a wave disappearing from the shore and I relaxed. His voice was so warm, so gentle and           I found myself warming to him. His tones were as rich as a caramel blanket or a custard filled bathtub, and I do not say that about many people.

The head master continued. “Well, well,” he told me kindly, “it’s good to have you here. I assume that you were told  the horror stories  that exist surrounding this  college, have you?”

I felt a slight twinge of guilt as the  genial man said this, realising that I must have been wrong about the  college and about this institution in general. I opened my mouth with a desisive shake of my head, hoping to convince him otherwise. “No, sir, but…”  I began calmly.

Instantly, as soon as those words left my unwary lips, the  face of the man before me changed, and changed dramatically. All the kindness, all the warmth and all the twinkling  of  the  eye balls fled to be replaced with the spitting fury that now took over.

“Did I say speak?” he bellowed in my general direction, eyes almost  removing themselves from his skull, such was his anger, “did I say speak?” When he realised that I was too startled to reply, he  bellowed again, “did I? Did I tell you to speak?”

He had not, and  in a small and somewhat trembulous voice, I attempted to inform him of such. “No, sir.” 

“And you do it again! The cheek of it, the shere cocky cheek of it. Did I say speak?” He leaned over the table towards me,  pushing his own face dangerously close to my own, “did I? DiD i?”

I was completely lost  for words. I don’t mind telling you. A mere few seconds prior to this display of uncontrollable rage, I had assessed this man to be a  genial if somewhat unusual soul. However, that reassurance was crumbling like a slice of crushed birthday cake as I took in those manically rolling eyes.

I tried to think this sudden situation through in as  logical a manner as I could. My speaking out of turn had made him angry, but when he had called upon me to speak and I had, to my knowledge, answered in turn, that had also ramped up his  anger significantly. Where was the sense in that?  I decided that for the moment, there was no sense to be found in that.

Given that my  previous crime had been giving voice, I decided that to sit  quietly would be the best course of action for me to take. But this too had the  opposite effect to the effect that I had desired. 

“I asked you a direct question,” the head master of this incredibly  strange educational establishment snarled, “and you dare not answer me boy. Answer me clearly and succinctly. Did I tell you to speak?”

I could see no way out now. I had no choice but to answer him. I opened my mouth and my voice came out as a hesitant mutter. “No, sir.” 

But alas, I had put my foot in it again, both feet, actually. “Again you do it!” balled the angry man before me, losing the plot completely, “your pestulentual cheek knows no bounds, my boy.”

The injustice of my impossible situation stung me like   a manipulative wasp. I opened my mouth again, feeling that in doing this, I was signing my own death  warrant, but unable to prevent myself from  defending my actions. “But sir,” I  protested, voice growing stronger, “you told me to speak.”

The head master merely scowled at me, completely unconvinced. He was ot  amused. He leaned forward,  fixing me with a stare that could have cut through diamonds. “You  have far too  high an opinion of yourself, boy!” he bellowed, fury breaking all boundaries that I had hitherto seen before, “unbelieveable. Un sodding believeable. You are to be beaten now, boy, do you hear me?”

He rose from the table and moved across to a cupboard. “Now,” he muttered, half to himself, “where’s my  kane?” 

I sat there, stunned and waiting for my intended violent sentence as the man  opened the cupboard and rummaged about for a moment. 

He pulled out one of his kanes, a vicious looking thing that could cause some serious pain, and  undoubtedly would in  a few moments. 

Like hell, I thought and rose to my own feet, fear making me bold as I prepared to leg it from the room. 

The head master strode around the desk and made his way towards me. “Where do you think you’re going, boy?” he demanded, lifting the kane above his  head, all the while advancing towards me with a   malevolent glint in his eye.

I didn’t want to wait for him to reach me. I stepped backwards, pulled open the door to his office and did leg it out of the room.

I  sprinted down the long doom laidened coridors at a spead that would have shamed an olympion. I cared not where my frightened feet took me. I cared not for the fact that a few seconds later, the voice of an angry man giving chase reached my ears.

‘Bloody hell,’ I thought, furiously. The man was gaining on me. He was waving his kane around in the air as he came ever onward, closing the gap between us as he did.

I reached a  t  junction in the corridor and paused for a moment, wondering where the best direction to go  would be. I paused for  just a moment too long, for the head master’s long arm snaked round my neck, ensuring that I  was unable to escape.

“You won’t get away now, will you, mi laddo?” he  growled, spinning me round and tightening his grip around my throat. “Once again, I wish to add, you are to be beaten now, boy, for your  cheek. In the  name of the holy father, I do this for your  benefit.”

I didn’t for one moment believe tha man’s lies. How could  an honest to God Christian choose such a path of blaitent   cruelty and  torture? 

I had no more time to dwell upon these questions. The man set to  beating me with   the stick that I had been sure would cause some serious damage. This  inate knowledge had now been joined by  physical sensation, as I now knew that the stick he had chosen could cause some  serious damage. It was causing serious damage, to my body.

As he wacked me again and again with the stick, I thought of many things. I thought of my mother, my poor dead father, my innocent sister and of the cruel intentions of Arthur Slugworth and the life that I had left behind me. But mostly, I dwelled upon the fact that there was a furiously angry man hitting me on the arse with a sharp and pokey stick.

 Finally, it was done. The man   straightened up and glared down at me. The rhythmic sensations of agony subsided into a calmer  sense of normal ish  pain and I tried my best to smile. It wasn’t working particularly well.

Then, suddenly, I heard an explosive bark of contemptuous laughter and I straightened up with a small groan of pain and a fresh wave of agony.  I settled my stupefied gaze upon the head master and saw that the look of unmistakeable joy had once again returned to his face.

I had no idea what in tha name of the lord was going on. Were there in fact two head masters, both of identical physicality but completely differing personalities? Was I  being made fun of here?

“Oh dear,” he was saying now,   forcing me  to pay attention to his words, “you fell for that one, didn’t you, young man?” He smiled directly at me this time, as if trying to reassure me that he was not so much a sadistic mentalist, rather a  kind hearted and benevolent giver of   emotional support. “Sorry,” he added, “that’s just a trick I like to play  on every new boy that steps through our doors. It lets them know that I’m not the sort of oger most head masters are expected to be.” He held out his hand as if to offer  peace, baffling me all the more.

This was unlike any joke that I had ever heard before. The jokes I’d heard previously always started ‘knock knock,’ or ‘there were these two nuns,’ or ‘what’s the best way to kill a  Frenchman?’ This one was not funny or amusing in any way, shape or form.   But  my ignorance born of never having been to an establishment of education before led me to believe that this was a common prank played by tutors  on pupils in places  such as these.

“Did I fool you then, young man?” he asked, kindly enviting me to speak.

I feared punishment for giving voice, but if this was nothing more than a prank played upon every new arrival, then I judged myself to be reasonably safe.

Opening my mouth, I ventured a silible. “I…”

“You dare speak to me? Did I say you might open your mouth?” The man was angry again. It was obviously becoming a habit. “Well, did I?”

 His frothing fury covered me with agitated spittle and I braced myself for another kane-based onslaught.

“Oh no, sorry, I did tell you you could speak. I remember now.”

I sied in relief.

“So, welcome to Saint Dickheads. We have only one rule here, and that is obey every rule, and there are over eight thousand of those. If you find yourself missing home, then please feel free to have a little cry, but remember this, if caught doing so, you will be hanged. Right, you can go to your  dormitory as soon as I have administered your welcoming beating. Stand up, and take your punishment like a man.”

I lowered my head, braced myself and sied as the rain of pain fell down upon me again.

Editor’s note: I shall try not to interrupt the hitherto  uninterrupted flow of  autobiographical writing to bring you one of these pestilential edetor’s notes, but in this case, I feel I must. Saint Dickheads college in Oxford no longer exists, as far as my research tells me. Willy Wonka, upon obtaining his millionth pound, purchased the college and raised it to the ground, so that no more innocent youths could come under the fire of unkindness.  Willy Wonka’s experience with that wonderful thing we all know as comedy was not the entity it is today, and it certainly wasn’t up to much back in 1915. George    the fifth was not into humour, you see.   The English were still somewhat at odds  with the  people of  France, so I do hope that readers of this autobiography will not be too offended by the racist jokes of a once innocent person from the dim and distant past.

I’ll let you crack on with the book now, then.


	11. Chapter ten: Even more argumentations of misery and dejectedness.

Thus began a period of life so miserable and wretched that I cannot even begin putting it  into words, although this is precisely what I am doing and what I have started to do. But we all need dramatic openings to chapters of our life stories, do we not, reader?

If one were to break down my misery into mathematical percentages, one would put it like this. I experienced seventy percent  of the misery  felt and examined  over the period of my entire life while  I was  secluded behind the granet walls of Saint Dickheads. At the age of writing this, I am approaching the age of eighty. That, readr, is a lot of misery.

You know, thinking about it, describing my unhappiness in terms of simple percentages      isn’t quite enough to adequately  explain things. This is a book after all. So, for the sake of posterity, I’ll relive the horrors of my educational years one last time.  The money better be worth all of this.

The dormitory that I had been assigned was a small and damp afare,  furnished with cold,  hard stones of varying shape and sise. The boys already living there informed me that we were to use the larger stones  for beds, chairs and tables and use the  smaller ones as pillows and cushens. This we did.

Upon my first night at Saint Dickheads, a pillow fight broke out between some of the older boys. There were nine broken jaws,  fifty broken teeth and three fatalities. Perhaps I  should now mention that  each dorm was lived in by eight boys.

 I was quick to learn the school rutene, a drawn out timetable of horror.

The school day began at five o’clock, with the ritual wakening  with sharpened  sticks. Every boy was  then herded via even sharper sticks  towards the fridges that had been turned into wash rooms. There, we    bathed in  buckets of water complete with ice cubes, using sand paper for flannles and hedgeogs for spunges. The personal injuries obtained by every boy when ordered to wash their faces mounted up quickly and soon picked up infections of many  kinds.

Once the morning bathe was completed, we were herded  in the general direction of the classrooms to begin our  lessons – terrible events in themselves that have left scars upon my memory that shall follow me to my grave. During these lessons, the tutors  would  put their sticks to good use. If one gave an incorrect answer, we were punished by a hard jab in the back or head with a sharp stick, and if one had the  audacity to offer a correct answer, we were rewarded with a poke with a blunt stick, and if for example  someone chose not to reply at all, then  said poor unfortunate would be taken before the rest of the clas and beaten before everyone present. These were not the only beatings the  lads at my building of education had to face. Our daily rutene of cruelty was completed by frequent beatings by the head master – beatings that happened alarmingly often. One may think that the  beatings were a welcome distraction from the daily poking with sticks of varying sharpness, but that would be an utter lie. Itw as a distinctly unwelcome change from being poked with sticks and every one of us hated them. I, more than everyone  else.

Lessons at Saint Dickheads were rigorously streamed. Oh, don’t get me wrong, reader, when I say  riggerously streamed, I in no way mean  that class selection was based on meret or ability, I mean that the lessons took  place in a stream, and not a warm one either. We were in England, and not only in England. We were  in Oxford. The rivers we were forced to stand in daily were  made  of a curiously frozen quality, probably constructed in that manner on purpose. In Winter, we had to be pretty damned careful not to be swept away by the current. Not good, reader. Not good at all.  

I know that I am piling upon you too much misery to handle in one sitting, reader, but I do feel better for airing my troubles and placing them upon all of you. Now you can share in my misery. Writing really is a perfect platform for one’s woes and worries.

Anyway, back to me and my unhappiness.

Punishment for disobeying any one of the eight thousand rules placed upon us were  also many  and varied. They involved anything from being placed in leg irons, walking  forty miles carrying a weight of thirty pounds, and the favourite of the teaching faculty, participating in the building of the walls around the college. I don’t believe that any of us lads were spared any of those punishments.

Meals at Saint Dickheads were also very interesting events. Not interesting in the way that parties and merriment are interesting, but interesting in the way that the great plague was interesting.  Meals were served  once every three weeks but though the food aspect of  meals were banned by the head master, meal times hadn’t been. Instead of partaking in  actual  sustenants, we were forced to sit three times daily in the social are, pretending to eat by means of whatever mime or theatre skills we possessed. These too were often very dangerous afares, for at too great a frequency, the head master would beat boys for being unconvincing in their efforts to appear to be eating. I witnessed far too many of these events, and I am scarred by every one of these.    

It has to be said that I, dear reader was one of those who was punished most often, mostly because I could  barely  refrane from keeping my mouth shut. Growing up   in a  family that had steadily  climbed up  the social ladder had not adequately prepared me for the strife that I would  experienced at the hands of the college tutors. I resisted the  tyranny with every breath in my body and every drop in my blood. Arthur Slugworth had placed me  under college protection and I wasn’t going to give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing that a bit of brutality was enough to break me. It wasn’t, reader, and I was eager to let them know that.

I refused to conform to the nearly ten thousand rules that we were told to mindlessly obey and I refused to allow the creul  regime to get to me. Unfortunately, my unwillingness to back down wasn’t exactly good for the boys who shared the dormatories and classes with me. If I was punished for speaking out in a class, others would go down for the same crime. This refusal and the students’ collective resentment of  my  giving voice for my frustrations earned me the nickname ‘upstart crow.’  

 I quickly  managed to gain for myself a  reputation for being a loud mouthed tosser, though I came to take this reputation and my nickname in my stride later on. I was proud to be the only one to remain unruffled and uncowed by the cruelty inforced upon every single one of us, and I liked the fact that the college and its staff had no power over me, at least, not enough to knock me off my soap box. After all, reader, my refusal to back down from adversity made me what I am today, which is the greatest chocolatere and inventer that the world has ever known.

  I kept my head down though when it came to my studies, and gained a considerable amount of knowledge in the field of Latin and European history. In these subjects, I  excelled despite my difficulties on the socialisation and compliance front, and I was proud of  this too. I am still proud of this, looking back on my college life decades later.

But the upstart crow lived  behind the  college  walls for far too long, and even the crow had to fly the spiked nest at some point, and I was  determined to get out of Saint Dickheads at any cost or any opportunity open to me. This crow would fly sooner or later, into the deep blue yonder of a much brighter future. I was certainly desperate to do so.  


	12. Chapter eleven: The times become a little less terrible and a little more tolerable.

So, I was determined  to terminate my contract with the college of Saint Dickheads, but it wasn’t a very easy task. Our head master’s eyes must have once belonged to a hawk because he seemed to be aware of every move we made. The hawk  to which his eyes had once belonged must have  had   exray vision because this knowing of every move we made was conducted through coridors and walls  as well. When I finally made it out, a part of my story you are going to have to wait a little longer for, I began to be mortally afraid of hawks. I  understand why that is now.  Though I   liked it not, I was  reluctantly impressed with his hawk eyed servailance of the college grounds.

 The head master continued to hold a hawk eyed, eagle   talloned and  sharp  toothed tyrannical  dictatorship over  the young lads of Saint Dickheads. When he wasn’t beating us with anything he could find, or slapping us with the flat ends of whatever he could find, or punching us in the head  with which ever  fist was free, he would practice upon us a game that he had devised himself.

I must pause in my glittering prose for a moment to tell you about this game. Our head master had apparently studied the tudors closely, because he appeared to have devised a game  that payed curious homage to what had been tudor football. By this, I mean that he took from tudor football the most violent bits and  disguarded the parts in which the players were supposed to have fun. This  game was popular with the  college lecturers and unfortunately  compulsory for the students. I was no acception. I cannot repeate the name of this notoriously  violent game, as the words are still too gut wrenchingly terrified  to vocalise, but let me tell you, many lads got horrifically injured in the process of playing said game.

The rules were simple. One had to kick or throw a ball across the acher wide football pitch and through a  hoop at the other end, while fighting off the hands and legs of other team members. Whomever managed to get the ball through the hoop won a prize. Said prize was a golden opportunity to punch the individual of your choice, unless you  wished to punch one of the  tutors, then you were not allowed.

These rules seem simple, I know, but the thing one must remember is that the ball was not a ball in the way that a football or a ruggers ball is a ball, but it was a ball in the way that the smallest boy in the school  was the ball. The bigger lads, which did not include me at this time, were strong enough to pick up the   small boy shaped ball and throw him across the  pitch and into the hoop. Those who were neither big nor strong, a group of people that included me, had the  chance to kick the ball into the  hoop. It is abominable, reader, I know. I know what you’re thinking, ‘wow, Willy Wonka once partook in a certain aspect of  athletic sport that involved kicking small boys like himself up the  pitch. Such a bastardo or twatington.’ Perhaps I should take the opportunity to state now that I enjoyed it not one bit. If one chose not to participate  in athletic sports at saint  Dickheads, we were stood up against the wall and used for target practice by the tutors – men who felt the overwhelming need to keep their  shooting skills up to scratch.

Ok, now I can get back to the narrative. Try to forget the small boy football thing, please. I will.

So yes, life at Saint Dickheads was distinctly unsplendiferous and anti-good. I fell asleep  every night wishing that I was back in my own bed at home, gazing up at the ceiling of my bedroom and listening to Wendy playing   the harp or flute or whatever instrument she had  chosen to  learn that week. I would have even settled for a life lived beneath the dictatorial rule of Arthur Slugworth, chocolate’s answer to Jack the Ripper. Every night, I fell asleep listening to the sounds of young boys trying not to cry, and failing miserably. Somehow, I managed to hold myself together, just about, but that, dear reader is thanks in no small part to a  certain young man who became my fast friend until the day he died.

On that night, the entire dormitory had been shocked into silence. Whitehead, the smallest boy in our dormitory had been crying because he was homesick. When he continued to cry, the head master came in and beat him. He continued to cry some more so the headmaster beat him again, and when  he was unable to stop crying, the head master took him out to shoot him. The shooting process was far too drawn out in my opinion, for the head master had provided a blind fold. Alas, the blind fold was for the head master and not for Whitehead. Thus, he was able to make the shooting last a very, very, very long time indeed.

 We were all left in devestated silence. We all liked Whitehead, as much as incarcerated animals can, which isn’t very much if I’m being honest. As I lay in my bunk, unable to get the relieved sigh of Whitehead’s last breath out of my mind, another boy approached me and spoke tentatively into the darkness.

“Oy,” he whispered, “are you still awake, crow?”

I sat up, surprised beyond belief, as hardly any of Saint  Dickheads pupils found the strength to speak for up to an hour after a nighttime visit from our head master. I found my voice, surprisingly still strong after months of unremitting toil. “Yes,”  I told him, “I’m awake.” I glanced up, eyes squinting through the darkness. “Look,” I told him, “not to be rood, but who in the hell are you?”

The boy’s face came closer, as  did the rest of him. If it had not, it would have been strange indeed. I could now dimly see the features of the young boy before me and couldn’t help smiling. He had an untidy mop of brown hair and a facial expression that suggested laughter, jollity and loveliness. In short, I rather liked the look of him. He seemed completely unconcerned by my obvious roodness, despite the fact that I had told him I was not in fact being rood. “The name’s Wilkinson,” he told me brightly, “James Wilkinson. Who are you? I can’t go on calling you Crow all of the time. Upstart Crow isn’t your real name, is it?”

I looked at him in confusion, confused and befuddled by his sudden display of moronicness. How could this boy think that my first name was Upstart? That wasn’t even a name. Shaking my head, I said, “my name is Willy Wonka,” I told him.

Wilkinson’s face lit up like a particularly  sparkelly Christmas tree. “Willy Wonka?” he asked, “Wonka? Thee Wonka?”

I had a stupid moment as I replied, “well, I’mm A Wonka, but not  sure about thee Wonka.”

“Are you the   chocolatier who’s work with  confectionary has taken London by storm?”

I nodded. I was indeed that Wonka. “Yep,” I said brightly, “I’m that Wonka.”

Wilkinson smiled, plonking his arse on the end of my bed. “Great,” he told me,  heedless of the  possibility of the head master catching him being friendly to someone, “what brings you to Saint Dickheads, then. I’ve seen you around and this place hasn’t got to you yet. You must have super powers or something.”

I grinned back. I din’t mind telling him, so I told him by telling him of my father’s death. And of my sister. And of Arthur Slugworth’s introduction into the Wonka household. And, of course, his forceful removal of me from the family home and my installation into this college of  horrors.

Wilkinson listened with seemingly wrapped attention. “Ah,” he said with feeling, “poor you. Poor, poor you. That same thing happened to me. I don’t have a sister, though, but my guardian did send me to this dump hole against my will. I’ve heard of you before, Willy. You finally gave Britain something nice to eat while drinking tea, apart from cakes, biscuits or toast. Or muffins. Or scones, cookies, donuts, or more tea. I like that, Willy Wonka. I respect that. So how long do you think you’ll be here?”

“Till I’m sixteen, I suppose,” I  said happily, “at which point I’ll probably be released and given charge of my father’s land, money and social class. That will be a relief.”

James Wilkinson shook an unhappy head and gave me a sullen frown. “Na, afraid not,” he told me, “this college ain’t like that, pal.  Believe me. Once you turn sixteen, if you survive to sixteen, our head master will do away with you. You need to get the hell out of this hell hole, and if possible, can you take me with you?”

I didn’t have to think  for very long about this. I liked the look, the sound and the manners of this James Wilkinson, and I did jolly well want to get out of this place. “Of course I will take you with me, James Wilkinson,” I said kindly, “we’ll get out of here together. Trust me. I’ll try and think of a plan. Get back to bed now, before we’re both caught talking to each other.”

Wilkinson stood. “Ok, Willy Wonka,” he told me, walking across to his own bed and lying down upon it, “goodnight.”

“Goodnight, James Wilkinson,” I whispered, rolling over and allowing my eyes to close. “Worry not, for we will soon be out of here.” 


	13. Chapter twelve: Flight of the crow.

Ah, reader, things are finally looking up. You may join me in  celebration now, if you wish.

We have journeyed through the seemingly endless  quogmire  of my  fourteen months at  college together, and I know that I have imparted some pretty damning information to you. Perhaps you will now  think twice about calling me a sadistic child murderer as the media did when they got hold of the story involving the golden  tickets and my factory. So you should, frankly. I’ve heard from psychologists that our childhood and youth experiences often shape our adult lives. I don’t think My own life is any acception  to this rule.

Anyway, back to me and  Wilkinson, and our daring escape plan  that came to fruition  despite the million and one  chances of something going very badly wrong.

Even now, I cannot quite put my finger on why or how we managed to escape. Two months  had  snailed bye since the first conversation involving me, Wilkinson and  our wish to escape the walls of our college prison, and a kind of doomed resignation had taken over me. I no   longer thought myself able to escape. I  had come very close to swallowing my pride and writing to Arthur Slugworth, intending to beg him for my freedom. But not even the weakest of people could have ever stooped that low.

But as I have already intimated, reader, we did escape. And it is time for me to tell of it. I shall keep you in suspense no longer.

It happened on a Wednesday afternoon in   April of 1916. We had reached the soon to be fateful hour of four p.m. , and the weather had reached the optimum conditions for our  tutors to  participate in target practice – a sport that every one of them was extremely fond of.

I had been  selected  earlier as one of the small boys who would  act as  a bullet in this brutal sport, mostly due to the fact that I had been caught mouthing off about the head master to a few unwary individuals. Unusually for occations such as these, I was not alone. Wilkinson too had joined me in the activity of standing against the wall, waiting to be loaded into the cannon and fired at point blank range against the wall at the far end of the college grounds.

I was first to be selected. The head master picked me up by the arms and hurled me into the cannon, loading me and priming the fuze. I had barely a second to prepare for my high spead flight into mid air before I was fired into the sky and flung against the wall.

I flew through the air, trying hard not to fall but failing miserably. At the highest peak of my ark across the rain drenched skies of that Wednesday afternoon, my entire life, all fifteen years worth of it flashed before my eyes. I saw my  sister crawling about on the concrete floor of our pantry back in our old house in London. I saw my mother’s grief stricken face as she told us of my late father’s demise. I saw  Arthur Slugworth and his smug face and I saw with terrifying clarity the look on Wendy’s face as we were forced apart against our will. And every single moment of it hurt. I don’t mind telling you.

And then  I   hit the wall, and experienced a very different type of pain.

My impact against the wall hurt like bloody hell, a thing that I had expected, but the heavy thud of my body slamming into that wall also created a deep crack in the wall’s structure, forcing me through to the other side.  

Upon landing, I thought that  I  had struck silver, landing in another, safer part of  Saint Dickheads college. But  in fact, I had struck gold, for I  had in  reality landed outside the college itself. I knew this because of a few deciding yet major factors. The first was that I could feel a hard concrete ground beneath me, cold hard and bruzey. The second was that far from feeling the cold emptiness of a high ceiling above me, I instead felt rain, cool and heavy droplets of rain falling like tears upon my skin and itching clothing. The third decisive and major  factor that informed me of my sudden freedom was the overwhelming relief that washed over me, the relief that only emerges when one has left one’s struggles behind one.

I was amazed, reader, and let me tell you, it is not often that I am amazed. I’m the man who invented everlasting gobstoppers, for God’s sake. I had never been a person who believed very much in luck, but it seemed that lady luck herself  was smiling upon me. For all our head master’s senseless brutality, it seemed that he hadn’t been gifted with much in the way of intelligence, for his wall was apparently, pitifully weak.

This assessment of the situation with me and my miraculous escape was  confirmed by the sudden appearance of James Wilkinson at my side. Looking round, I saw the face of my instant best friend and mouthed the word ‘good lord.’ I didn’t yet have the strength to say the words ‘good lord’ out loud but mouthing it conveyed my surprise well enough.

Sitting up, James Wilkinson looked round also, expression perfectly illustrating the madness of our situation. “Good lord,” he said, finding his voice before I had even begun searching for mine.

 I more than understood his  surprise. Both James Wilkinson and I had wracked our tiny brains for a possible solution to our inforced  incarseration but I for one hadn’t been able to think of anything.  Wilkinson told me later that he too had been unable to think of a decent method of escape. But now, we were  both slumped on the other side of  the college, with no idea how. I was hardly going to put up much argument, though. I had been spared going through more misery at the hands of the tutors of Saint Dickheads, and for that, I was grateful.

Rising, I bent and pulled Wilkinson to his feet. My friend was still looking rather dazed and confused.

“Do you not see what this means?” I asked him in a voice grown squeaky with excitement. I pointed at the distinctly unlike college scenery around me, wanting to grab Wilkinson and shake him for his utter disbelief in where we had ended up. “Come on, James Wilkinson, we’re free. Let’s hurry up and leg it before those bastards back there realise that we’ve gone.”

The mention of our more than possible discovery by the people whom we had escaped from must have brought Wilkinson back to his senses and he shook himself free from my grip and we did indeed leg it away from the college grounds, not looking back.

We ran fast, our months of ducking, diving and running  away making us swift and fleet footed. The lack of weight due to our lack of food based nurrishment meant that our bodies were light, meaning in turn that we sped down the roads, ignoring the rain lashing against our faces and clothing. My feet flew across cobbles as I gladly put as much in the way of distance between myself and my tormenters as I jolly well could, feeling my heart grow physically lighter as I ran. I was equally glad to be running with a good friend at my side. I would introduce him to Wendy, the moment I  arrived back home.

Reading through what I have written about my escape, I feel that our escape was not as bold, nor fearless as I think it could have been. That is however, the reality of it. We were fired out of a  cannon,directly through the wall of the college and catapulted into freedom. Then we up and ran. Simple as that, really. I’m sorry that my escape cannot be described in as great an extent of detail as the misery I lived prior to this escape, I assure you, more adventures are to come. In future chapters, you shall hear about my emergence into the business of confectionary, my explosion into fame, and how I found a great love, indeed, the greatest love a  young man could ever find.  

 

Editir’s note: The escape of Willy  Wonka from Saint Dickheads college is legend. For decades after Willy Wonka’s flight, young boys  tried  to copy his escape, getting themselves l. loaded into cannons and fired straight at the wall. But either the tutors suspected the method of young Wonka’s escape, or they simply built another much stronger wall, for no other boy ever escaped in such a way again.


	14. Chapter thirteen: A return journey somewhat souered by discovery.

If  thoughts  were like animals, which they are not,  then  mine own thoughts would have closely resembled a manic waiting room of a   vet’s surgery, full of happily prancing mind puppies, teaming  with hopefully yowling  thought kittens and echoing with  the sounds of mental yips, guinni pig squeaks and the hissed utterances of their owners imploring them to be quiet. It was indeed very noisey in there. I believed that it would have scared merry hell out of any mind reader, telepath  or mediam  that dared to cross me. It would have frightened me to, but it was my own mind, and I was too giddy with the relief of my escape that was still filling my mind like the  helium  from the types of balloons that the kids love playing with these days.

The road before Wilkinson and I was a long, muddy and  treacherous one. Indeed, a more wary traveller would have probably thought twice before embarking    upon a journey  across it. But I  am not one of those more wary travellers. I was an eager, more than willing  traveller and without a second thought or a backwards glance at James Wilkinson who was, alas, one of those more wary travellers, I  set one foot, then both feet upon the road.

Wilkinson, like one of those golden retrievers who  follows its friend regardless of its reluctance, walked onto the mud soaked,  cobblestone path  and began to follow me, head   drooping sadly.

My spirits could not have been dampened. I strolled along, feet  squelching through the mud, dirt and something else that a polite British man does not mention by name. As I walked, I  hummed as merry a tune as I could think of, which was not very merry, as the songs sung by the lads at Saint Dickheads had  been ditties composed in anger, upset and frustration.

After about half an hour or so of marching  boldly along this road, my strength, or what there was of it, began to wane and my march slowed to a trudge. I began to look around me  for a carriage, cart or truck that may pass us along this road, finding none. Behind me, I could hear the mutinous muttering and weary  gasping of James Wilkinson as he struggled on in increasing  irritation.

“Are we going to stop any time soon?” James Wilkinson asked, voice sounding distinctly winey to my ears as I slowed my pace even more, allowing the weary young man to catch up with me. “I tell you something,” he sid as he finally caught up with me, “I’m knackered.”

I too, was swiftly approaching the knackered stage of my journey and I too needed a rest. So we stood for a moment, resting our legs and watching the rain fall down in sheets from the sky that seemed to echoe our uncertainty. The heavens didn’t seem to be entirely sure whether they wished to bring forth rain or  sunshine, so had temporarily decided to do both, offering us a blue sky tinged with rain clouds.

I waited a few moments on the road before trudging on  again. I had no idea where Atley manner was situated in terms of  geography  and location, so just hoped to God that we would come upon a friendly cab driver or scrupulous cart horse owner at some point.

This we did, a few hours later as   we left Oxford behind us. I had hoped we would have progressed a little further than the city of Oxford, but it turned out that for all his happiness to be  out of Saint Dickheads, James Wilkinson wasn’t the fastest or even the keenest traveller. We clambered up into an old horse drawn good waggon and remained in the back until the driver would later see fit to chuck us out.

Thankfully, the man knew where Atley  Manner was. I was able to sit in relaxation, knowing that I was on my safe way home, or at  least a partially safe way home. That is until I discovered what the good waggon contained. At that moment, all sense of relaxation left my body like the air from a balloon which has been popped by a malicious school boy with a grudge against parties.

Chocolate.

Burying myself in amongst the bars and bars and bars of rich creamy chocolate, I almost sighed with extatic  joy. It had been months since I’d seen so much as a crum of chocolate, never mind an entire bar. Here were numerous bars of chocolate, indeed, too many bars of chocolate to conceivably count in one sitting. I was unable to help myself Well, actually, I was more than capable of helping myself. I did. I helped myself to a few of these treasures and stuffed a few more in the pockets of my SaintDickheads uniform. James Wilkinson finally became useful as he too managed to secrete a few chocolate bars into his own pockets.

I ate with great gusto in the back of the waggon, aware, but not caring very much, that I was for all intents and purposes committing theft. My tongue tasted the sweeet sugary goodness with pleasure, and I was pleased even more by the fact that Wilkinson seemed to be a lover of chocolate also. Who wouldn’t be?

Once I finished my more than substantial meal of chocolate, chocolate and chocolate, together with chocolate and a few scones I found at the bottom of the chocolate mountain, I found the time to glance at the branding of these chocolate bars. Whomever had made this chocolate had to have been a genius. I would have to send the man a letter of congratulations when I at last arrived back at home. Thinking about it then, I did have the sneaking suspicion that what I had tasted had been familier, and  earily so.

Picking up one of the empty wrappers, I glanced down at the golden lettering and felt the bottom, sides and top fall out of my world. The gold lable read ‘Slugworth.’

What?

I closed my eyes, shook my head to clear it of stupidity and opened my eyes again. I looked down at the golden lable again. No, it still read ‘Slugworth.’

I could barely believe either my eyes or my taste buds. Slugworth was a man of no values, no taste and certainly very few skills within the field of chocolate making. I had tasted some of Arthur Slugworth’s own creations myself and had to say that even with my subjective opinion on all things  confectionary, I hadn’t tasted anything that would be worth writing home about. How had this man suddenly progressed  in the confectionary trade?

‘No, oh no no no,’ I thought, ‘surely not.’ But my dark thoughts had already begun to march  in my mind – the mind  that had grown parranoyed by the many months spent literally fighting for my life, liberty  and freedom. I knew what had happened. That chocolate making feend had stolen my confectionary ideas. The lying, cheeting, family torturing eago maniac had stolen my recipes and passed my hard work off as his own. Though I had no proofe what so ever at this point. I knew. It didn’t take a rocket scientist. It was a combination of tiny subtle factors. He had used my perfectly balanced coco to milk ratio. He had used my subtle blend of chocolate, caramel flavouring and excitingly chunky caramel pieces. He had used my tantilisingly tastey fudge centres in some of  those chocolate bars, and, most infuriatingly of all, the man had even had the gumption and the gaul to use my own cheerfully depicted logo.

The  slowly burning candle of confusion that had been lit in my mind quickly transformed into a  blazing harth of fury as I stood up in the back of the   goods waggon. I had to get to Atley Manner and take back what was rightfully mine, for no real inventer could have withstood and  suffered such a personal blow.

I stood swaying in the gently rocking waggon for what seemed like a few second, though it was really a few minutes,  before I realised that I would not have to wait very long at all before I would have the opportunity to confront Arthur Slugworth, for we were now approaching Atley Manner, my childhood home and what was now the home of hatred and dislike.

 And yet I  watched the swiftly approaching house with a considerably lighter heart. Although I would have to come upon Arthur Slugworth, who would undoubtedly be most displeased with my return from Saint Dickheads, I would also be returning to my sister Wendy. If she  was still there.  She at least would be pleased to see me, surely. That was at least something. , that is.


	15. Chapter fourteen: A mother lost to wedding bells, but a sister reacquainted.

Atley Manner in its entirety looked much the same as it had upon my departure many months ago. The lawn was still perfectly smooth, the grass glowing a beautiful shade of green beneath the confusing iray of  heavy black clouds and sunshine that made up the sky. The house loomed in the background like a friendly  giant or a  semi friendly fortress. It  gladdened my heart to see the old building once again. I had forgotten how much one’s home means to one when one is no longer  present in that home.

I marched directly for the front door, head raised  high, my soul  standing tall and my spirit towering. I  could not  be in any way  cowed as I rang the door bell and waited for my dear uncle’s response. Oh, what a shock he would get.

Indeed, the look upon Arthur Slugworth’s face as  he flung the door open to reveal me standing before him was a picture. I have never been a good painter, dear reader, but I wish I had been. If I had been, I would have certainly painted an image of his shocked and somewhat appalled face. I don’t think the man expected me to arrive home at all,   never mind as soon as I had.

“Ah, oh, William,”  he said, his  attempts to act as nonshilent as possible pitiful in the extreme, “how nice it is to see you.”

The torture I had suffered at the hands of the tutors of Saint Dickheads – the tutors that Slugworth had willingly  sent me to, had allowed me to grow  bold. I stood tall, or as tall as I could without looking   ridiculous, and stood the man down. “I cannot say that I share the same feelings, dear Uncle,” I told him darkly, trying to see beyond  his  ugly face and gaunt thin frame into the passageway  behind him. I could not see my sister lerking there. My heart sank a little, but only a little.

“How  did you return from college?” Arthur Slugworth asked, stepping back and opening the door a little wider as if to invite me inside, though  I knew he was doing anything but that.

I shook my head as if in apparent unconcern. “Oh, I smashed my way through a wall. That’s all. May I come in?”

I could see that my outright precociousness had unnerved this man more than somewhat. I had clearly made an   impression on the man. I, after all, had managed to break out of Saint Dickheads, though my escape was altogether accidental. Arthur Slugworth’s  once domineering counternance shrank slightly as he  stood before me. He had no choice now, it seemed. He had to allow me entrance. “Sure,” he told me, smiling in an extremely mechanical fashion, “come in.”

 He opened the door a little wider, beckoning me inside this time. Hesitating for a second,  I stepped forward, moving into the entrance hall of my childhood home. Looking around me, I saw that very little had changed in terms of fernishings and general  decoration. Slugworth had kept everything much in the same way as it had been on my departure, with a few small additives, of course. A picture hung on the wall beyond the open door – a picture of himself  standing in the centre of a busy crowd of people. Studying the picture more closely, I recoiled mentally and felt my grip on my life situation slipping a bit. He was standing in the chocolate factory in which I had obtained great fame. Not only that, the Slugworth in the picture seemed to be standing at the head of the crowd,  driving the workers relentlessly. I  had  been  right. Slugworth had taken my place.

“Like the picture, young William?” he asked, closing the door behind him and moving to my side to examin the picture of himself, “quite a marvel, is it not? I worked hard to get there, believe me. So many people I had to bribe. There really is no rest for the wicked.”

I said nothing. What, I thought, was there to say?

It turned out that my lack of thought for something to say mattered very little, in the grand scheme of things, for Slugworth certainly was not at a loss for verbiage or smug epitarfs to vocalise about the subject of himself. “Ah, young William,” he told me with the sort of grin that made me think of the cat that has  received not only the cream, but the  yogheart, the milk and also the icecream, “people all over the  country will soon flock to my confectionary imporiom in order to feaste themselves on the chocolates me and my co workers create. Slugworth’s will be a name to remember one day, even more of a name than Wonka. Mark my words, young William.”

I did not mark his words, of course. I saw his words worthy of nothing more than a mere comma. They were certainly not worthy of a dramatic full stop or even a strategically placed exclamation mark.

 I scowled in reply and made to step past  him into the corridor, but found my direct path blocked by the man’s arm. Looking up into that face that I  loathed so, I saw that smug smile again. “Oh, and Wllliam,” he said in a voice as reassuring as that of a creepy man following one down a dark alliway – which is to say, not at all, “I have an even bigger surprise to share with you. Would you like to hear it?”

I didn’t. I  in no way wanted to hear anything more from this chocolate thieving dullard, but I nodded, pretending I did.

Slugworth beamed at me, an expression that didn’t at all suit him. “I have decided that in order to maintain my personal security, I am to marry your mother.”  

At Sint Dickheads, I and my fellow prisoners  had been frequently smacked about the chops with something heavy if the tutors could get hold of it,  or something sharp if the tutors could not. And yet upon hearing Slugworth’s words, I  thought that I had received the biggest smack my body had known in its  fifteen years. I could only stare at him, dumfounded, stupefied and if I may say so, frumdiddled, which is a word quite like  dumfounded and stupefied but differing just enough to be worth using. Had I just heard  that correctly?

In order to ascertain whether or not I had indeed heard that question correctly, I asked “what did  you say?”

Arthur Slugworth  smiled again. Really, I cannot  emphasise enough, that smile was a creepy one at best and a horrific one at worst. “I am to marry your mother,” he repeated, in a tone of savage  triumph. He offered me a raised eyebrow as he registered my continued disbelief. “I will marry your mother and take control of the Wonka family.” He grinned. “Soon, your name will be William Slugworth, a fitting name for such a creature as yourself, do you not agree?”

I most certainly did not agree. I opened my mouth and told him so. “I most certainly do  not agree,” I said with as much vigger as I could muster, what with me  realing in shock and horror and all. I stepped   backwards, determined to remove myself from this odious man’s presence, a presence that was niggling at my last nerve. “I will never allow you to do this,” I told him firmly, “never.”

“Oh, I rather think you will,” Slugworth informed me.

In order to emphasise the fact that I was not going to allow this, I stepped  forth into  the garden, slamming the door behind me and in his stupid face.

“Willy!”

I turned round,    shocked. How rood. That was not a word that should be  used to describe a gentleman of good English stock.

Then, before my frumdiddled eyes, I saw an apparition of strange  earthy delight. Towards me, a moving geranium bush lumbered, taking on an ever more recognisable  shape as I stood and watched. As the walking geranium  slowed to a halt in front of me and a curious James Wilkinson, for one must not  forget that he too was with me, I  recognised it in its   entirety and a smile  ballooned across my face.

“Wendy,” I cried, rushing forwards to take hold of her, “thank God. I was wondering where you’d gone.” Stepping back from her, I  couldn’t help but beam at the sister that I had missed so much, thought of so  often and now gaped at in such astonishment. I took her hand and led the strangely plant-like form of Wendy further into the privacy and  seclusion of the gardens.

“It is good to see you too,  brother,” she told me joyfully, “I must hear about absolutely everything.” She smiled up at me, through those eyes that remind me so much of father’s and said, “come, sit and let’s talk.”

I grinned. “There is certainly a lot to tell, sister of mine,” I told her happily. “Just wait. It’s a harrowing story indeed.”

 


	16. Chapter fifteen: Conversations and plans  concocted and compiled.

I followed Wendy into the deepest part of our garden, the part of our garden that in times gone bye would have played hoast to the boystress  games of our childhood, and we took seats upon a bolder that in times gone bye would have probably  been used as a castle or a fortress. We  had very vivid imaginations, you see.

Here, the  troubles of  life had  no power. The sun dappled greenery was like a safety blanket for Wendy and I, even now as  we  sat amongst the plants and  leaves as young people on the verge of adulthood.

Wendy turned to face me as James Wilkinson, panting from his exrtions, plonked his arse upon the bolder beside us.

I watched as Wendy began to remove the foliage from her hair, face and clothing and I smiled as she slowly transofmred into the homo sapian version of the sister that I adored so.

“That really was a rather splendid disguise, dear sister,” I told her in auh. As Wendy shook the remaining leaves from her hair, I  asked, “why  were you disgused as a plant, anyway?”

In response, Wendy grinned and said, “oh, I’ve been a plant for some time now, ever since you were packed off to boarding school. I ran into the garden and made sure that Slugworth didn’t find me. And it worked. He never did. He searched for me for some time but never managed to work out where I’d gone.” She frowned suddenly. “Slugworth was all for sending me to a boarding school for girls, a place called Saint Harlet’s. But I had no desire what so ever to sit in a school room sowing throughout the day and singing  and dancing all night. I can do that at home.”

I nodded in as understanding a manner as I could. Indeed, a school for ladylike ladies would never have suited Wendy, not now she was a member of the Suffragette movement.

 “I assume you heard the  troubling news regarding our mother,  dear brother,” she told me darkly, eyebrows knitting  together  in furrowed concern. It was a look that was coming to recognise more and more of late. It seemed that she was unwilling to waste any more time talking of trivial matters.  

I nodded, saying with equal grimness, “indeed I have dear sister. How logn has he been planning this?”

Wendy rinkled her nose in disgust. “I don’t know, but he certainly has it in his head to do so. He has already taken over the running of the chocolate factory where you work.”

I scowled. “I heard about that,” I said in irritation, “that confectionary thief. I will have to do something about that.” I frowned, realising that my chocolate ambitions would have to become secondary items on our Slugworth disowning agenda.  “What can we do about it? We cannot let  Slugworth  become part of our family.”

Wendy nodded with feeling. On her face was an expression I had never seen before. Was it white hot rage or simply red hot defiance. Perhaps it was both. In any case, Wendy jutted out her jaw in a jesture of determination and nodded again, just as infatically. “Indeed we shall not, dear  brother.  Something must be done. But we will need someone else to help us.”

Her  eyes then  shifted to the face of James Wilkinson, a face that had suddenly turned red with embarrassment. He was smiling at Wendy as if she was the most  beautiful woman  he had ever seen. It was possible that Wendy was indeed the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, for at Saint Dickheads, there was only one woman, the troll faced Mrs Foogly, the old cow in charge of the medical centre. Needless to say, no one of sane mind ever had erotic dreams about that one. Accept Alf Piersons, and the less said about him,  the better.

Wendy seemed as interested in James as James quite clearly was in her. “Who are you?” she asked, offering him one of her most attractive smiles.

James Wilkinson’s face went even redder than it had been a second prior to Wendy’s well chosen words, and I couldn’t help but smile at my best friend’s innocent awkwardness in the face of a charming young woman. “I…” he began, swallowing hard and opening his mouth,  endeavouring to try again. “I… I am James Wilkinson. I… I was with Willy at Saint Dickheads.” It seemed that  speaking was becoming complicated. I tried hard not to laugh.

My friend’s stammering explanation of his origins must have enchanted Wendy at least a little bit, for she let out a girlish giggle and  offered him her hand. I sat in horror, wondering why a woman of gentle persuasion was so willingly  offering a gentleman her  hand without warning. Perhaps  her role within the Suffragette movement was having  more of an effect on her than I’d  previously thought.

“I am delighted to meet you, James Wilkinson,” she said with a beaming smile, “I must say, my dear brother Willy has excellent taste in male companionship.” Her smile could have put the son itself to shame as she aimed the full force of her charm at the still bashful James Wilkinson. He went even redder and turned away, the powers of speech apparently deserting him entirely.

I was unsure of precisely what to say.  A feeling of confusion descended upon me as I sat in the middle of  this social awkwardness. I was anxious to get back to the pressing matter in hand and so I cleared my throat and turned to Wendy, determined to bring the conversation back onto a topic that I understood.

“So, how is mother keeping?” I asked Wendy in a firm voice.

Wendy frowned. “Our poor mother is quite mad,” she told me sadly.

I was momentarily  relieved. “Only quite mad?” I asked cheerfully, “well, that is excellent news. She was very mad the last time I saw her, so quite mad is actually a big improvement.”

Wendy  shook her head pityingly, possibly sympathetic to my folly. “No, not really,” she said, “quite mad as in very mad, not as in a bit.”

“Right, I said, pretending to completely understand what she was talking about. I was lying. I had no idea. But I supposed that it mattered not. Whether she was quite mad or very mad, she was still in a mad state.

Wendy was still talking. “I think  that is why Slugworth wishes to marry her. He thinks she will be easy to control, and it looks like  she will be unable to refuse  him.”

“Oh,” I said slightly  deflated, like a balloon popped with a pin by a  vindictive school boy who’s been denied an invitation to  the school disco.

Wendy turned to James Wilkinson, eyes wide and pleading. “Perhaps you will be able to help us with our plans to rescue our mother.”

James smiled gladly. “I’d be only too  glad to help you,” he told her with as wide a  smile as he could, which was rather wide,  all things  considered.. “What were you thinking of doing? Any ideas?”

Wendy and I lapsed into silence.  James had asked a pertinent   question. How were we going to get our poor insanity addled mother out of this forced marriage proposal? It was a  quandary indeed.

  Before any of  us could begin to articulate  the rough outlines of an idea, not that we had anything of any value to say,  the doors to  Atley Manner opened in the distance, and two figures began to descend the steps, one shrowded in a long white wedding gown, the other leading her along with a  sinister smile playing about his granet lips. The air seemed to shudder around us and the world turned cold. My eyes burned at what I had just seen, but my mind seemed to have betrayed me, never allowing me to look away from the monsterous sight before me.

Beside me, Wendy gasped, body going tense at my side. I reached out a consoling hand and she took hold of it eagerly, clutching it tightly in her own. I had nobody to offer me comfort, and so had to watch.

We both knew who those two figures were. We had known one of those people our entire lives after all. The other struck a terrifying chord in both of our hearts, and after taking a look at the slightly more   sinister of the two figures, James turned pale as well.

Arthur Slugworth was leading our poor mother down the garden path and towards the gate of Atley  Manner. He  loped along with long and arrogant strides, voice carrying loudly across the garden to where the three of us crouched unseen.

“Come on, Mrs Wonka,” Slugworth  was saying now, smugness emanating from his tone  and causing my stomach to hieve, partly because  the chocolate meal back in the waggon had been my first   substantial meal in weeks,  and partly because an obnoxious sicofant  was walking up our garden path spewing his self congratulatory musings for everyone to hear.

My mother seemed completely     unpaturbed by his sickeningly close  proximity. She smiled  blandly at the sky and said, “I cannot go yet, I  haven’t   seen my husband yet.”

Oh, my dear mother. She still believed my father to be alive. I was so moved by the scene being played out before my auh struck  eyes that I wanted to weap. But I could not. English   gentlemen in 1916 did not weap before their sister and another man. So I held firm and turned to Wendy with a stubborn gaze.

Arthur Slugworth was unforgiving as he yanked at my mother’s sleeve and forced her to  continue walking. “Come on, let us go. I am in a hurry, as you know. We need to get to the church of  Saint Resistant’s before the day is out. Now stop it with all this carrying on.”

They disappeared  through the gates of Atley Manner and the three of us stood, preparing to follow the pair as  they left.

 Wendy was the first to move. “I know where Saint Resistant’s is,” she told me, “sometimes, our Suffragette meetings are held there. Let’s go. We can go now.”

Her  eagerness to get the job  done was infectious and in moments, James and I were following my intrepid sister  across the garden and towards the gates. I had no idea whether Wendy had a plan. I suspected that she did but she was already yards ahead of me and I  had to run to catch up with her. I sensed that my  sister was going to be the one taking charge in this endeavour and I was more than happy to allow her to do so. As we stepped out of the gates on the road to Saint Resistant’s, I was prepared for an interesting time. Things tended to become interesting whenever Wendy had a plan.


	17. Chapter sixteen: On the road to saint Resistant's, passing jubilation on the way.

We made quick progress down the road to Saint Resistant’s, but unfortunately for Wendy, James and I, Slugworth and my mother were making far quicker progress.

In a few minutes, I realised why. It was the rumbling of wheels that  was the first defining factor as to what was happening, and as I looked up, I saw the carriage racing off into the distance. No doubt Arthur Slugworth and my mother were inside, being driven to the church of Saint  Resistant’s at incredible spead. There was no way in which we were going to  match the spead  of five stirdy horses. I glanced at my sister  who was almost running along the grass verge in order to try and keep up with the rapidly disappearing  carriage. She seemed unwilling to be beaten.

“Wendy!” I called, bringing  my sister to a sudden halt, “wait a minute. We’re going to need some help with this. I don’t think anyone will listen to the words of youth, do you? But I have a plan.” I did indeed have a plan. It was an idea that I hoped would work, despite the fact that we had little in the way of money.  

Wendy turned round, anger flitting across her face. “And what is your plan?” she asked in indignation. She was staring at the infinitesimal dot on the horizon that was the carriage and she didn’t seem to want to linger.

I smiled, glad that I had something of worth to say. “Father’s business partner,” I said, “we should inlist his help. 

That made Wendy pause and  it gave  me ample time to catch up with her. As she  turned back to me, her eyes were wide  with  dawning comprehention. I could see that she too believed that my idea was a good one.

“Which business partner?” she asked, at last willing to listen.

“Albert,”  I told her simply.

My father  had had many associates and business partners during his life and career, and my family and I had come to know many of them well. One of these associates, a man who worked in the  industry of law, lived close to our house and had been one of my dear father’s closest associates. Indeed, I had often heard him refer to Albert as  ‘a friend of mine,’ which was  an extremely  rare  thing as father was not  one to keep  many friends. I knew that if anyone  would be able to help us in our quest to remove the odious presence of Arthur Slugworth from our lives, Albert was the man.

“He’s a loyer, isn’t he?” I asked, noticing with a pang of worry that Slugworth’s carriage had now disappeared from sight, “I reckon he’d be able to help us. He knows how illegal a marriage like this would be. And he’s a friend of our father’s. Who else would give us support in a matter like this?”

I  didn’t bother waiting for my sister’s response but moved off  down the street, searching for the house that belonged to my father’s loyer friend.

The houses in our  area were all  of a similar size to Atley  Manner, and Albert’s place was no acception to this grandious rule. As I approached Albert’s house, I couldn’t help but notice the car parked outside. Even middle class families such as ours did not own a car. Albert was clearly  rising quickly up the social ladder. I glanced at the car as I made my way towards the door, unable to restrain  the feelings of  jealousy that rose up within me. I wish I had one of those. Even in these  enlightened days of 1916- a period of  technological wonder, cars were   difficult to come bye.

Albert took what I  considered to be an infuriatingly long time to answer the door. I knocked again and again until the man saw fit to open the door to  his Victorian dwelling. When he did  open the door, he looked down at me with the merest traces of a smile and then glanced down his long driveway to where Wendy and James lerked, trying hard to ensure  that I would be the one to talk to this man. I  shrudely assessed his body language – a thing I had learned to do at Saint  Dickheads, and  had the feeling that Albert was not entirely pleased to see us.

This feeling was confirmed by the slightly sceptical manner in which he asked, “how can I help you, young man?”

I tried not to appear too nervous as I  said, “hi, Albert. I’m William Wonka. I was wondering  if you could help my sister and I with a problem, what with you being a loyer and all.”

Albert’s entire personality  seemed to change from one of impolite scepticism to one of  sunny good humour. “Oh, good afternoon Willy,” he said, using the familier name that only those close to the family used, “come in. I’d be glad to help you. I’m a great friend of your father’s you know.”

“I do know, Albert,” I told him calmly, wondering why he insisted on reminding me of something I already knew.

Beckoning to James and Wendy, I made my way into the loyer’s home, following Albrt down a long corridor and into a brightly lit sitting room. I was permitted to take a seat on a large sofa that dominated the room and as Wendy and James entered, Albert allowed them to take  places beside me. Wendy sat on my right, James on my  left and we all sat watching Albert as he picked up a piece of paper and a pen, preparing to take notes.

He addressed me as he  pirched the piece of  paper upon his knee. “So, young Willy, how can I help you? I did promise your father to help you out with any problems you    experienced when you were older.”

I smiled at him, gladdened by his willingness to help us. “Well,” I  began, “I need your help with a soon to be extremely illegal marriage.”

“Oh?” Albert asked, clearly interested.

“Do you know Arthur Slugworth?”

Albert’s eyes narrowed in dislike as he nodded. “Indeed I do, Willy.” He   grimaced. “He was a difficult person to deal with let me tell you.  He had the impudent  cheek to visit my practice and ask that your family’s assets  be turned over to him.”

 “Did he?” I asked, shocked for  some reason. I couldn’t for the life of me work out why. Arthur Slugworth was capable of anything and I knew that.

Albert nodded curtly. “Indeed he did. So what is this illegal marriage that you speak of?”

I launched directly into my explanation, an explanation that began to sound more and more like a rant as I went on. I told him of my mother’s  desent into madness and  Slugworth’s intentions to marry her. I told Albert also of the implications of that marriage, the fact that my mother was in no condition to  agree to marriage and the fact that Slugworth was openly intending to seaze  our  family’s money, house and social standing through the avenue of marriage.  Albert listened throughout,   making the  occasional note as he did so. As I ranted on, I began to notice a slightly smug smile crossing the loyer’s features. I had no  idea what he was smiling at until I had finished speaking and once he  was sure that I had finished, he put down his pen and smiled at me.

“I am glad you came to see me young Willy,” he told me brightly, still with that smug smile, “because I have some news for you which may cheer you up somewhat.”

“Oh? I asked, unwilling to wait for this information, “what’s that?”

Albert got to his feet and left  the room, leaving Wendy, James and I alone in that living room.

“What’s going on?” Wendy asked, face a mask of confusion.

I shook my head. “No idea. But I think  Albert’s  going to help us. I just hope he  hurries up with that.” I wondered how much time had passed. I guessed that Slugworth was half an hour ahead of us  at least.

Albert entered the room once again, a folded letter in his hands. He passed it to me without a word and took a seat  opposite us, watching me intently as I opened the folded piece of paper and began to read.

I read slowly, deliberately savouring every word as my  eye  brows shot up in astonishment. I had no idea  how I could be reading what I was reading. It wasn’t possible. Not unless father had returned from the grave to  send the loyer a letter.

“Dear Albert,” the letter said in  the precise hand that was familier to me, “I am  sorry that I have been  unable to write for so long. I was  captured by a  band of working class revolutionaries who somehow thought my   enterprise to be debtremental to society. I do not understand this. They called it ‘a display of upper class repressionism.’ It is slander. Pure and simple slander. Well, I do hope I shall be able to return to Britain soon, as my North Indies enterprise has failed. The working classes have seazed it and I no longer have a place in the business. Anyone would think that capitalism didn’t benefit those of a lower class than myself. I think someone needs to inform them of the good that capitalism can do for people. Anyway, dear Albert,  I hope I’ll see my wife soon, and my children too. I do hope they have been treated well while I have been away. Your good friend, Wonka.”

And there the words ended.

 I looked up, tears threatening to spill over as I thought over the written words left by my father. I handed the letter  to Wendy so that she too could learn the revolation surrounding our father’s not  so actual death. My own emotions were in turmoil. I had no idea what to think. My father had been supposedly dead since the englorious   Spring of 1914. I remembered it  clearly. Now, Albert was  informing Wendy and I that he was in fact alive, and merely at the mercy of a group of angry revolutionaries who detested  the fine institution of capitalism.

Wendy’s eyes  were glssoning with tears. She couldn’t keep her emotions together. She handed the letter back to  me with a trembulous smile. I my own smile growing wider as I considered the implications that this revolation would bring about for us. If our father was still alive, then Slugworth would be unable to marry our mother and we could once again resume the happy life we had known prior to Slugworth’s arrival. Minus the money, of course.

Rising to my feet, I looked at Albert, asking  not how long  my father’s letter had been in his  possession and why he hadn’t told us about it before. “Will you help us with this issue, then?” I asked, “because we need to get to Saint Resistant’s before Slugworth marries my  poor dear mother.”

Albert stood too. “Indeed I will, young Willy. Let us go to the church and  put that  arrogant man  down a peg  or two. You should take the letter with you so that Slugworth cannot argue with  the reason for his being unable to steal everything that the Wonka family holds dear. Let us go now.”

And in the space of a few minutes, Wendy, James, Albert and I were out of the loyer’s grand Victorian house and into the streets, making our way towards the  church of Saint Resistant’s, our intrepid mission to rescue mother well under way.

 

Editor’s note: It may seem at first glance that   the revolation of Willy Wonka’s father’s continued existence is merely a convenient plot twist. I thought so too until research proved me wrong. Willy Wonka’s father had managed to get himself into a great deal of trouble thanks to his capitalist ventures, and eventually his luck ran out.  The  kidnapping of middle classmen by  revolutionaries wasn’t common as such, but the evidence certainly points to this being the truth. This revolation certainly brought a ray of sunshine into the lives of the Wonkas. Especially Willy who’s  story is still  not even close to being completed.  


	18. Chapter seventeen:  Triumphant  bells are ringing, and not wedding bells either.

 

The organ in the  church of Saint Resistant’s was playing a   funerial ballad-like derge as Wendy,  James,  Albert  and I stepped into the building behind the rows of  pews. I didn’t have to  look for  very long before I spotted my mother and Slugworth standing at the alter, the latter person grinning like a deranged madman. It was menacing, that lear. I was forceably reminded of the sadists at Saint Dickheads. This man was black of heart. There was no mistaking it.  

I could not remain silent. It was as if the presence of a loyer at my side filled  me with the confidence I so needed as I marched up to the alter to   confront the man who was making my life a misery. I  came to a halt in front of Arthur Slgworth, my arms raised high and fingers curled into fists, my face a mask of heroic gravity as I looked  the bastard in the eye.

Slugworth looked down at me without the slightest trace of pitty. “Why, it is young William Wonka,” he told me with false brightness, “have you come to witness the union of myself and your mother? I would thank you, but I’m not going to, as your presence cheers me not.”

I shook my head. “Absolutely not, Mr Slugworth,” I said coldly, “I will never allow you to  marry my mother.”

I stood in front of him, face upturned to his,  expression  one of anger and eyes locked onto his. I thought myself taller than he at this moment, but as he fixed his  unflinching gaze upon me, my delusions of bravery began to crumble like a slice of birthday cake in the fist of an angry child.

My heroism didn’t get the reaction I had been hoping for. I had hoped for at best a complete surrender, with wicked Arthur Slugworth handing my mother over and possibly even crying a bit, and at worse him looking slightly scared and reluctantly agreeing to discuss the matter. Instead, Slugworth began to laugh. The laughter was a low rumble at first, barely audible over the now tuneless chords of the organ, but said laughter quickly swelled to a roar a kin to that of a jubilant lion who has just caught his rival in his attempts to upstage his authority. The laughter echoed around the cavernous church and I flinched, my   heroic face crumpling into a miserable one.  The laughter went on and my hands dropped to my sides,  fingers uncurling as my  arms dangled uselessly at my  sides. Slugworth continued laughing and though my  eyes  remained narrowed,  it was now with less manly determination  and more with trying not to cry.

He finally finished, his cruel mockery having  stripped me of all manliness that I had  thought I possessed. I could feel the eyes of Wendy, James and Albert the loyer at my back, and I sensed their shared helplessnesss. I didn’t like it.

“You’re not  going to allow me to marry your mother?” he asked, voice trembling with the threat of  further  chuckling, “ don’t think so, boy.” He then offered me a final bark of laughter that made me feel more cowed than  a brow beaten  heffer. I stepped back from him involuntarily, angered further  by my  obvious  cowardice and my desire not to appear as cowardly. Growing board by my lack of conversation and the long pause that had followed his final bark of nasty, bullying and superior laughter, Slugworth turned away from me with a snort of  disgust and fixed his eyes on the  preaste who stood in confusion at the alter beside him.

“Come on,  Mr,” he told the preaste in an obviously  superior tone, “hurry up. Can you weddingise us here and now? I haven’t got all day.”

The preaste cleared his throat in an attempt to sound authoritative and began. “Dearly beloved,” he said in a somewhat horse voice, addressing the rows and rows of empty seats and the   three people standing stunned at the very back, “we are gatherd here today to witness the…”

Slugworth interrupted him with a bark of impatience. “Skip that part, Mr Preaste,” he said, “get on with it.”

Cowed as I had been, the preaste cleared his throat again, face turning the colour of a very ripe tomato, , that is to say, very red. “Do you, Arthur Slugworth take  this woman to be your wife/” he asked.

Slugworth gave a quick nod to the affirmative.

The preaste turned to my mother. “And do you, Margary Wonka, take this man to be your  husband?”

In response to this simple question, my mother let out a    peel of laughter and pointed into the middle of the room. “Scatter cushens can greatly enhance a room,” she told anyone who bothered to listen, “but so can dead dogs, miniature ponies and pigmey donkeys.”

No one was really sure what to say  to that. Not least the preaste who said, “so do you, Margary Wonka,  take Arthur Slugworth to be your husband?”

“She does,” Slugworth replied  curtly.

“I must hear it from her lips.”

“I do,” Slugworth said in a pittyful attempt at my dear mother’s voice.

“From her,” the preaste said firmly.

Then, from the back of the church, Albert the loyer’s voice spoke up in  deep sonnerous tones. “I think you’ll possibly find, Slugworth, that this  union cannot in fact go ahead.”

Turning to face the loyer who was now standing at my side, Slugworth scoffed and rolled his eyes at the much taller man. I too gazed at Albert with mounting incredulity. What in the heck was going on? This situation was turning more and more into a pantomime before my very eyes.  The drama was strong in this one.   “What did you say?”  Slugworth snarled, his face becoming  even uglier than usual, if that was possible, “what are you telling me?”

Albert nodded curtly at me and I saw this as my cue. I thrust a hand into my pocket where I had shoved the important legal  documentation, pulling out the slip of paper and handing it to him. Albert smiled smugly as he held out the letter that he had   shown Wendy and I twenty minutes ago.  “Because of this,” he told Slugworth, brandishing the slip of paper under his nose.

Slugworth snatched the piece of  paper from the loyer’s hand and scrutinised it closely. An almost unbareable silence followed while  Albert and I watched his eyes scanning the printed letters  with what looked like ever  increasing anger. The slip of paper  began to tremble in Slugworth’s hand as he read.

Once he had finished, he   looked back up at the loyer who’s face had now taken on a distinctly self approving expression. “Where did you get this?” he asked in a voice of thunder.

 The preaste was still lost in confusion. “What is going on?” he asked.

Albert looked him in the eye. “This piece of paper,” he said smugly, “is a  letter that will  inform Slugworth that Mr Wonka, the wife of the woman standing before you has not in fact deseaced. He is  still alive and as a  result, this  wedding is null and void.”

The words fell upon a very heavy silence. Slgworth’s face had gone the colour of clotted cream, white and very unpleasant. I watched him closely for a reaction, knowing that we had won. Arthur Slugworth leaned forward, pushing that ugly face into my personal space and lowering his voice to a growl of uncontrollable rage. “Ok, William,” he whispered, the horseness of his tone somehow making him appear more terrifying, “I accept that I cannot argue with the law on this matter. And I want to let you know that I am so sorry.” His voice sagged with sarcasm. One didn’t have to be a human with a properly functioning brain to work that one out. And I was a human with a more than properly functioning brain. Not only did I register sarcasm, I also registered a threat.

Slugworth turned away from me and aimed his apology to the group at large, a group that now included Wendy and James  who was now standing at Albert’s side. “I’m sorry to have caused you trouble,” he told the preaste, the loyer, my mother, and the three youths who stood watching him, “I realise that I cannot argue with what the law says.” Those eyes swept the church, settling on each face in turn and aiming a cold hard look at all of us. “I hope Mr Wonka is found soon. This family needs to be put back together. I wish you all good luck for the future.”

And he left the church, careful to keep his back to us.

 I watched him leave,  knowing with acute dread that this was not the last time I would see Arthur Slugworth. I would see him again. I just hoped that it would be a long time in coming. But as  I listened to the jubilation ringing around me as Wendy and my mother embraced, tears sliding down their cheeks, I could not share  their joy. I could not revvle in the small victory, nor could I shake off the words that Slugworth had not said to me. The fear was creeping up upon me again like the ghost of a long dead mad uncle or the figment of a   bully’s vivid imagination. I just knew that though the   reunited Wonka family  were now tasting the sweet milk and  jucey fruits of triumph for the moment, that milk and juce would run out, and we would be  forced to  swallow the pips  of misery once more.

 


	19. Chapter eighteen: In which a rae of sunshine falls on the lives  of the Wonkas.

So, reader,  once again we arrive at  another sunlit chapter  in the life of Willy Wonka.

 It has been an  arduous process so far, has it not? We   have   struggled through many an adventure thus far in my story, haven’t we? You have  learned of the rosie garden of my  childhood – a  rosie garden that was quickly taken over  by the thistles   of dread and the deadly nightshade of cruelty. You witnessed my escape from Saint Dickheads, a  school that makes the work house of Charles Dickens’ times seem like a term spent at a theme park, and  you have also  been privy to  the most daring plan yet of Arthur  Slugworth.

I know we have come far, but there is so much more to go through. And not all of it will be full of merriment and delightfulness either. Parts, or indeed most of this tale will be filled with misery, hard toil and what I like to call damnification and blastelment. Not that you would be surprised, reader. Basically, it is business as usual.

But, dear reader, every cloud has a silver lining. At least, that is what people tell me. I know not whether clouds really do have silver linings. I have examined many clouds in my time and I have never seen a silver lining in any of them. But never mind, I don’t think this saying is a literal one.

Anyway, back to me.

We left the church of Saint Resistant’s without further ado. My mother and Wendy, both still crying tears of joy, followed James Wilkinson and myself out of the old building and into the streets.

Indeed, there seemed to be a great deal to be happy for. I had  returned triumphant from my period of  incarseration in my college prison. Wendy had managed to remain strong during the period in which Slugworth had  presided over our family’s afairs, Arthur Slugworth was finally out of the way and our dear father wasn’t exactly what one would call dead after all. My heart was soaring, my soul was mighty and my spirit was towering over the roof tops of the town. Nothing could dampen the spirits of the Wonka family as we walked down the streets and towards home.

“Well, isn’t that a relief, children?” my mother asked, her voice losing all of its befuddlement and confusion. She strode along with ease, her hand held tightly in Wendy’s as the two women giggled over some joyful fact or other.

I nodded. “Indeed it is,  my dear mother.” I knew now that the revolation concerning my father’s lack  of death had driven the madness out of my mother’s anguished soul. So, it seemed that things were capable of looking up even more. Now we had another thing to be thankful for.

As we approached the land mass of  Atley Manner and its gardens, I felt overjoyed. The  Manner and its grounds were  ours once again. With any luck, the coridors of our mantion would again be filled with merriment and laughter, as it had  been  in the  golden days of mine and Wendy’s  childhood.

We ascended the  steps of Atley Manner as one column, shouting in  jubilation as we entered our mercifully  empty home.

Arthur Slugworth seemed to have left in a great hurry. He had left not one personal effect behind. He had even taken the revolting picture of himself at my chocolate factory down off the wall, luckily for all concerned. No vestage of his ugly existance remained to dampen our gladness.  

 Mother immediately  set to  preparing a tray of tea and cakes as Wendy, James and I took places on the sofa, all wearing similar expressions of beaming adoration. The grand father clock in the corner chimed half past the hour of four. A perfectly decent time for afternoon tea.  

Amidst the mellay of our happy laughter, mother re-entered the room holding a tray of tea and cakes, as she had promised. Under her arm however, was a bouquet of the oddest looking flowers I had seen thus far in my life, not that the varieties of flowrs I had seen had reached a high number. English gentlemen weren’t accustomed to looking at flowers with knowledge or experience. I was no acception to this rule.

“I found this in the kitchen,” my mother told us, placing the tray upon the coffee table and showing us the  bouquet, “I have no idea   who it’s from, but there was a  piece of paper in with them.”

Wendy smiled with delight. “Someone is clearly pleased with our happiness too,” she told us knowingly.

I wasn’t so sure.  

I stood up and took the  piece of paper from my mother, taking the bouquet of flowers with my other hand.

Sitting upon the sofa once more, I scrutinised the  bouquet and frowned. Indeed this was a rather odd arrangement of flowers. Well, one couldn’t call them flowers as such. The  bouquet consisted of rose thorns, thistles and jagged nettles that looked capable of causing a  person some serious  discomfort should they dare to touch them. The whole thing  seemed to be  more  like a gift born of irony than joy  or  appreciation.

I abandoned  this unpleasant   bouquet, laying it upon the table and picking up the  piece of paper that my mother had  given  to me.

It was a note. Not a note to remind me to get milk, or a musical note or even a bank note of a substantial amount. It was a message. A rather unusual message as it turned out.  

Written on the note was a  poem of rather strange intent. “The family is a blessed unity of  laughter and of joy,” the note read, “but soon with sorrow they will pay when they lose their little boy.”

It was an awful poem. The rhymes were feeble at best and I snorted with dirision. It was clear that whomever had written it cared very little for the words he was weaving. The whole thing smacked of a lack of effort. The grammer too left a great deal to be desired. I frowned.

Once I had obtained  peace of mind in terms of the monstrosity of the note’s lyrical content, I applied my mind to the meaning of the words. Who had written it? And what did it mean? After a few seconds spent staring fixedly at the lettering, I FELT THAT I COULD ANSWER AT LEAST ONE OF THOSE QUESTIONS FRANKLY and the other with at least some certainty. I was sure that the short poem spoke of an impending disaster. I thought that said disaster was probably going to befall our own family, due to the fact that the creepy poem had appeared inside our own house. The question of who had sent the note was harder to answer. I wracked my brains to figure out who could possibly want to cause us any harm. Arthur Slugworth seemed like the obvious candidate. But he had said sorry. He had apologised to us for causing us misery and anyone with any decency would keep to their words, surely.  

No. No. Surely Slugworth would not  cause the Wonka family more trouble than he already had.  Atleast, I hoped he would not.

Wendy’s  words broke through my confused reverie. “What does the note say Willy?”

I shook my head, unwilling  to halt our gleefulness in its tracks. I crumpled the note in my fist and decided that for the  moment, neither Wendy or my mother  needed to know what whoever had written said note had stated, whether poetically or otherwise. “Oh, don’t mind the note Wendy. Forget about it.” I smiled. “Let’s enjoy the evening.”

And we did. James  Wilkinson made a very good impression on my dear mother from the first and as soon as the tea  and cakes were consumed, he joined us in song.

Our voices rang out  like church bells on Christmas morning and as I joined Wendy, James and my mother in a rousing chorus of our  family favourites, I felt the  wellness of things. I hadn’t had much time for merriment thus far, but it seemed that things were finally coming together.

Oh, how very wrong I was. Work changed all of that, and with work, came a sense of vicious rivalry that I had never before felt, and sparked off major competition between me and the man who I would come to name ‘the confectionary thief.’  

 

Editor’s note, a little close to the previous one, but educational: Willy Wonka’s words regarding the note sent to his family can be said to seem almost pathetically neigheve. However the social niceties of the time dictated that an apology spoken by a member of the middle classes was more legally binding than it is today. This fact goes a long way towards explaining Willy Wonka’s disregard and unwillingness to believe that Arthur Slugworth was  the writer of the threatening poem.


	20. Chapter nineteen: An investigation of the work place   reveals a  depressing reality.

I knew  that now my family was basically safe and  secure with regards to its unity, I could again turn my eager gaze to the work place.

I had deeply missed the  chocolate factory whilest I had been  trapped behind the imposing walls of Saint Dickheads college, and though I  hadn’t set foot inside the confectionary  haven for some time, I could still with ease remember the subtle eroma of melting  chocolate, burning caramel and  sugared almonds that had filled the air around me as I had worked tirelessly and without a negative thought. I  do not think I need to tell you how sickened I had been by the self congratulatory image of Arthur Slugworth hanging on the wall of my home. That look of     arrogance had agrivated me beyond belief and thus, I was determined to  reclaim my position at that same establishment. Not only that, I was determined to buy  that  establishment, thus  becoming the owner of the chocolate factory in which I had made my name.

I made my way to the chocolate factory the day after our family  was reunited. I rose early and left everyone  asleep in bed as the sun slowly rose over the roof tops of the town.

 I walked   through the sleepy streets with unhurried strides, knowing that my skills were such that I would not have to fight very hard or for very long  to get my job back. As I approached the gates, I allowed my fingers to creep into the pocket of my jacket, brushing the thick wad of notes that nestled there. This thick wad of bank notes was my main weapon.

Of course, in the days of 1916, property and work places cost considerably less than they do in this day and age. When I had my chocolate factory revalued a couple of years before commensing this autobiographical volume, I found that the entire chocolate factory was worth at least  fifteen and a half billion pounds. Excessive perhaps, but my name was worth half of that. Back in 1916 however, the entirety of the building was worth only four hundred. Four hundred pounds was a more than lucrative amount of jolly cashingtons in war time, even in  the posher areas of England, but I knew that I could afford it. The price of the chocolate factory may have amounted to a small fortune, but luckily my father’s will had left myself and my family a rather large fortune. I was determined to invest such a monetary gift wisely, or at least as wisely as one could.  

The   gates to the building were locked. I frowned. In all my time working at the chocolate factory, it had always been a hive of activity. I had never known it to be locked. Glad that I had had the foresight to grab my set of keys, I unlocked the gates, dreading what I would find inside.

The chocolate factory  itself  was  suspiciously silent as I stepped  inside the building. I looked around, seeing not a soul in sight. The notion of  this desolate  place made me shiver as I walked towards the main work room. The smell of caramel and chocolate still hung  in the air, but  its power had wained significantly now. That was not a good sign. It was clear to me that no work had been done by anyone in this factory for at least a week. But the picture of Slugworth standing smugly on the factory floor came into my mind. In that image, Arthur Slugworth  was surrounded by workers, but apparently that picture had been taken  a long time prior  to my entering on this morning. So, Slugworth had proclaimed himself to be the new chief worker of the chocolate factory but had obstaned from allowing any actual work to go on. That seemed typical of the man’s character.

 I made my way into the work room and stood there for a moment, stunned. None of the machines were switched on. Nothing was happening, and no one was there. Where had all of the factory workers disappeared off to? Had  Arthur Slugworth sacked them all, or had they in fact  resigned in protest, unwilling to work for such an arsehole?

I knew not any of the answers to these questions but I walked on  anyway, switching on the lights and making my way towards the office where the manager would  normally have  been located.

The manager’s office too was empty. Papers littered the desk where said  person  would have  normally  been sitting and out of curiosity, I rounded the desk,  sat down and pulled the thick sheefe of papers towards me. I was determined to find out what had happened here, and I gave no thought to the fact that I was possibly not supposed to be there.

Upon glancing down at the first piece of paper that fell into my hands, I found that my assessments of the situation had been more or less correct. Arthur Slugworth and the rest of the factory workers had not been present within these walls for some time. There was however, no indication as to why they had departed and why the  factory had remained silent.   I continued my methodical search and beneath a pile of untouched documents, I found what I was looking for.

Switching on the desk lamp, I  scrutinised the document, a summary of the goings on at the factory, or that was what it looked like.

The document was dated January 1916. Months prior  to my escape from Saint Dickheads and my reunion with my family. Reading through the document three times in quick succession, I felt a stone of sadness fall into my stomach. The workers had not been sacked. Neither had they staged a protest and left by their own means. In fact, something even worse had happened. The men and women, stirred no doubt by the not quite successful progress of the war, had signed up to be a part of the war effort.

 Sitting at the manager’s desk in this   empty place, I felt uneasy. It seemed that the war had consumed  every aspect of British life. Not even the factory in which I had enjoyed so much of my days  had  been left unscathed. I sighed. Every single one of the   workers had left to try and put an end to the conflict with Germany and I was the only one left. I reached into my jacket  pocket again and felt the wad of money inside. Even if I did  buy the chocolate factory – a thing that I had more or less decided upon, I would have nobody to help me run it. My only choice would be to buy the chocolate factory and keep it closed until  the war was over. Only then would I be able to recruit  some people to help me keep the place going.

It had  become apparent that I had no further business remaining seated at  that desk, and I stood,  switching off the lamp and replacing the documentation back onto the desk with a heavy heart.  

In a sense of dazed confusion, I locked up the building, then the factory gates before I walked away down the street. My mind was a mad wirl. I could not comprehend that my fellow factory workers had up and left. The war had taken all but one of my friends, it seemed.

I look back on this bleak discovery in this more peaceful time of my life, reader, and find that in this, I was far from wrong. I looked up on my old  work colleagues later on and found that indeed, the war had taken them. No one who had worked in the chocolate factory had returned from the trenches and this had been a terrible realisation. I had known every single one of those dillogent confectioneers and the knowledge of their deaths saddened me greatly. I would go on to gather together a considerable work force later on once 1918 brought an end to the great war, but somehow it would never be the same. But never mind, reader. Although I had no chocolate making team to speak of, it wasn’t going to prevent me from buying the great chocolate factory. And this is precisely what I proceded to do with all spead and  haste.  


	21. Chapter twenty: The acquisition of the work place and the introduction of Wonka's chocolate  factory.

I had seen from a glance at a few of the papers on the desk that  this great chocolate factory was governed  and owned by an estate agent. I knew where the head office of said estate agent was situated and once I had ensured that the  factory gates had been securely locked, I  began to walk in that very direction.

By now, the  town was slowly coming to life. The streets were more crowded than they had been upon my arrival at the chocolate factory and I nodded and smiled at a few as I passed them. Very few people knew who I was anyway, what with my own name being relatively obscure at this time and all, so few people bothered me as I meandered along.

 The low rumble of cars – the new fangled invention of scientific genius that was still taking Britain by storm at that time, filled my ears as I approached the estate agent’s head office. The thick wad of notes was still safely nestled in my coat pocket – a weapon that would prove invaluable in my quest to obtain the control and ownership of the chocolate factory.

The building was  pleasantly warm as I stepped inside. I was gladdened to get out of the chill of the early morning, but proceded with all possible haste to the office of the man I needed to speak to.

He was sitting comfortably in a chair at his desk when I made my way into the room. I stepped forward after a polite word as to why I was there in the first place, and he and I  sized each other up as shrewdly as two men can when  they know nothing about each other. I saw in him the odious counternance and personality of the  hereditary upper class, and liked not what I saw. Here was a man  to whom hard times were only spoken about at the dinner table as if on a passing whim. Here was a man to whom money came easily, the kind of man who, even in these troubled times, had considerably more than a shilling  or two to rub together.

“”Good morning, Master Wonka,” the estate agent said in a voice evidently meant to be friendly, though it was in my opinion as bright and hollow as a light bulb, “you’re enquiring about  the chocolate factory, are you?” He spoke as if I hadn’t just informed him of such and I repressed the urge to say something of a sarcastic nature, though I restrained my urge with difficulty. His voice, said in a supersillious tone that I liked not at all, told me clearly that this man considered me far too young to be inquiring about  the purchase of a business related establishment. He frowned at me as if to emphasise the point and said, “you wish to buy the chocolate factory, do you?”   

I nodded. Again,  I had already said as much,  but I smiled in any event. “Yes sir,” I told him calmly, hand moving unconsciously to the pocket in which my stash of money was secreted.  I decided  to get straight to the point. “I want to buy the chocolate factory,” I told him brightly, looking the man in the eye.

The man before me smiled. “I assume you know that a building such as that will not be cheap to aquire, Mr Wonka,” he said, clearly of the opinion that I was in fact a man of little finantial means. Certainly my humble attire would have fooled him, but he knew not of my small fortune of course. “The factory has seen little activity for some time since Arthur Slugworth became its manager. I trust you know that.”

I nodded. “I do indeed, sir,” I said politely, contemplating my uncle’s name with disgust. “That is why I intend to take over. I know I could make something special of that place.” I paused here, dwelling for a moment upon the inventions that had made me famous throughout London. If I owned that factory, if I was its manager in command of its workings, perhaps I could make an even greater name for myself.

The estate agent – a man who’s name I have conveniently forgotten, nodded and smiled. “I have heard of the name Wonka before. So, how much money are you willing to pay for the acquisition of this factory, Mr Wonka?”

I played my trump card. I pulled the thick wad of notes out of my pocket, placing the bundle of jolly cashingtons upon the desk and offering the man a smile.

 I could see  from the expression on his face that he was secretly surprised by the shere amount of money I  had. ‘good,’ I thought privately, ‘perhaps you should get your head out of your  arse and realise that you’re not the only one with the means to make a living here.’ I also knew by his expression that I would not have to fight very hard to have my own name put on the gates of that chocolate factory. My fate,  in effect, was sealed.

“That certainly seems to be in order, Mr Wonka,” the   unknown to me estate agent said as he  snatched up the notes like a greedy upper class businessman, which he was, “you certainly have your   plan worked out.” He smiled at me, expression showing genuine friendliness  now that he had parted me with my  cash. “We’ll be glad to be rid of the place, to be honest. It’s production went right down hill  when Arthur Slugworth took it over.”

I nodded,  similarly gladdened. “Thank you, sir,” I told him,  accepting the pen the man offered me and signing the document that would lead to the factory being legally place in my name.

 It was done in the stroke of a pen. In less time than it takes to say ‘here’s a pen,’ I had signed the all important document and the job was a done one. I was given the paperwork and a fancy set of keys that jingled cheerfully as I slid them safely into my now vaykent pocket.  In seconds, I went from a disgruntled  fifteen year old in  need of a work place, to a young  man who owned  a chocolate factory, a building that I hoped would prove  profitable  in the years to come.

I rose and took my leave without saying much more than the customary ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye,’ taking great care to add a ‘sir’ at the end. I left the head office of the  estate  agency with a merrily jingling coat  pocket and a sense of joyous merriment.

Oh, reader, I needent tell you how good I felt on  that day once the chocolate factory had been signed over to me. Jubilation of the type I had never experience, my friend. That was what I felt upon leaving the presence of the man who had granted me the    ownership of the  chocolate factory. My jubilation would be further heightened  upon realising, days later, that the name upon the factory gates had been changed to reflect a much more personal tone.

‘Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.’

Sweeter words had never been written. The very introduction of that name allowed everyone to know that Willy Wonka was indeed back in town and that he, or should I say I, was ready to take over where Arthur Slugworth had  left  off,  hopefully with better results. I mean, let us face it. It was not likely to get any worse, was it.

 

Editor’s note: Wonka’s acquisition of the chocolate factory was indeed as laughably easy as it appeared. Convenient or less than legal though it may seem, this was how the transaction was made. The estate agency from which Wonka bought the chocolate factory did not last long after Wonka’s visit. It is claimed that fraud was what shut the place down in the end, as  several more dodgey dealings were conducted, but in any rate this didn’t matter, for the name of Willy Wonka would go down in history, thanks  in no small part to the acquisition of that  factory. 


	22. Chapter twenty one: Keep the home fires burning, such centiments indeed.

Looking swiftly through what I have written so far, reader, I am aware of how fast paced my life has been  thus far. It  seems to me that my life as  an upstanding citizen of Britain’s sceptered isle has been naught but a less than cheerful sequence of unhappy  happenings.

 It has been a heck of a lot to take in, I know, but I have always maintained that a story full of long winded and boring descriptions of things that do not matter make for  terrible pieces of writing. This is why I am going to spend a short time moving swiftly on through the long winded and boring section of my young life instead of harping on about nothing of  importance. I hope you do not mind, reader, but to  me, reading  about my existence between 1916 and 1918 would not be too interesting.

I and my family  did very little of import during the latter half of 1916. We kept ourselves to  ourselves, glad to remain  behind the four walls of Atley  Manner  while the Great War raged on outside. We had very little contact with anyone else as my father’s continued absence from  our lives meant that we were not obligated to attend parties or balls. News of the war came through to  us in the form of newspapers, and every paper that fluttered through the letter box brought disturbing news. The war against fashism was not going very well at all, and that is putting it mildly. Though the British  government and the military commanders over seas were trying their best to ensure that the harsh reality of the Great  War was kept quiet, they were failing miserably.  The  soldiers were one step ahead, sending poetry of dark portence  home to old Blighty and keeping us very much in the loop as to what was going on. The full horror of life in the trenches would be discovered years later, but sitting at the breakfast table with the papers in my hand, the news was bad enough to be going on with.

James Wilkinson, my best friend in all the world, had moved into Atley Manner  and was becoming a much valued member of the Wonka household. Not only was I happy to have him around, my mother had warmed to him and as for Wendy, I do not think I had ever seen her happier.

Thinking about it now, I am surprised that I didn’t notice Wendy and James’s growing affinity  with each other, an affinity that  blossomed quickly during the quiet Autumn and Winter of 1916. Perhaps I had been too wrapped up in my own musings of my coming fortune to take much notice of the hand holding, the sniggering and the  long looks that the two aimed at each other as they sat in the parlour, drinking tea and  tiring everyone with their talking about everything and nothing.

Wendy’s work with the suffragette movement seemed to  have  been very much forgotten. She  layed  aside her political  afirmations in favour of following James Wilkinson around the house, giggling in a manner that I had never associated with my sister. She had  abandoned her strong and independent persona and was slowly transforming into the girliest of lady women.

I was oblivious as I have said. I spent my days in my bedroom, writing down as many confectionary based ideas as I could. In those years, as the calinder moved from 1916 towards 1917, I  conceived the idea of  the fizzy lifting drinks, an idea that I hoped would come to fruition. I suppose that I was still childish enough at   sixteen to find humour in such things. Or perhaps I was just desperate to prove myself to be the genius I knew myself to be. It was more than likely a combination of both.

I began to accumulate a considerable amount of theoretical ideas as I sat there in my room, trying my best  to ignore the  giggling and jollity issuing from Wendy’s room where she and James spent a lot of their  sultry afternoons. My head was crammed with innumerable thoughts as I awaited the end of the Great War.

But when would the war end? I had no idea. The papers that continued to arrive during the year of 1917 indicated that despite the  hopes of his majesty the king and his government, the war was not likely to end any time  soon. The news  was becoming more and more  grimified as we became aware of a shift in the tide of the war and though Wendy had seaced in her interest in the war effort, I had not. I  kept a very close eye upon the changes taking  place in both Russia and America and though I hoped for the best, I was to expect the worst.

Russia pulled out of the war in  the  Winter of 1917. I had not expected this but the  papers  stated it clearly. Internal conflict. That was what they had called it. Never was a conflict more mildly interpreted. The revolution had torn Russia apart and it appeared that the army was unable to fight a war both inside the country and out on the western front. So, the Russians had made peace with Germany and with the Kaiser in particular and this fact brought devestation to those who were  following the war effort. Our mood was somewhat uplifted however when the news came of an alliance between America and the  rest of the allied powers. The Americans had   gallantly stepped in to assist Britain, Canada and France in their efforts to  kick Germany up the backside. That was at least a glimmer of light in the dark. I could only hope that said glimmer of light was not to be a mere train traveling through the dark tunnel of the Great War. But nobody could be sure, of course.

Christmas in the Wonka household was as  quiet an affair as the rest of the intervening time had been. 1917 had been a difficult year for the country but we as a family  were still of the desire to keep our spirits up. Though we knew of the hardship taking place on the Western front, we were determined to   fulfil  the nation wide obligation to  keep our hopes high.

In order to keep up Britain’s wavering resolve, the greatest artists of the day took to their pianos and composed songs meant to raise the spirit. These songs were repeated inside the homes of the British people, whether they were the families of soldiers or not. One of my favourite melodies was a song intitled ‘keep the home fires burning.’

 Evenm now as the year of 1981 draws ever closer, I can still  remember the words of that haunting song with startling clarity. Perhaps this is due to the frequency with which I played the song over and over on our old gramophone back home. Or perhaps it was just the message that was relayed across to the public through the lyricks themselves.

‘keep the home fires burning, while your hearts are yearning, though your lads are far away, they dream of home. There’s a silver lining, through the dark  cloud shining, turn the dark clouds inside out, till the boys come home.’

And we would too. It was our duty to do so while our men faught for our freedom half way  across the world. I spent the final day of 1917 doing just that, keeping the fire of hope burning in the harth and in my heart as the bells rang in the new year.

 I prayed for a victory. I  yearned for an end to the blood shed that seemed to me to have no significant point   or purpose. I  longed for a conclusion to the conflict that had  taken  the lives of so many young men like myself  - men who had taken up the challenge that I was too much of a coward to accept.

So, I hoped and prayed, and as  those who know their history will know, my prayers and the prayers of many others were  answered eleven months later, finally bringing an end to the death and distruction. And not before time either. Not before time.


	23. Chapter twenty two: In  which celebrations are in order at long last.

I  did not think, reader, that 1918 would bring about both an end to the  Great War and  an upswing in my own  career as an as yet  relatively  undiscovered confectionary genius. But it  did.

In order to prevent this narrative from becoming obsurdly boring, I shall skip on through eleven months of  the year 1918, and focus on what happened from  November onwards. I’ve skipped on through a large chunk of my life, I know, but never mind.

Anyway, back to me. So November drew ever closer and we prepared for another quiet  Winter in the Wonka household. The newspapers that fluttered through our letter box were still bringing news of a rather grim nature, but I do not think any of us could have anticipated the events that would  unfold as November 1918 broke over the world.

The war was over. On the eleventh of November, 1918, the armistice was signed, a signature that proclaimed Britain and the rest of the allied powers to be the victors in that war. When I say that we rejoiced would be a gross understatement. Not only did we celebrate, we revvled in our victory. Britain was safe. At long last, a war that had  continued on for four bloody and turbulent years was over in one single day. Who wouldn’t have  celebrated?

People  took to the streets in droves to celebrate the end of the war, and my own family were no acception. The bells rang out. The people cheered and the trains  returned home to old Blighty, carrying the  survivors of the Great War home to their families.  The loyal British people lined the root that those trains took and we  clapped, cheered and shouted ourselves horse until dusk fell, driving every sensible person back inside their houses. The less   sensible ones, James, Wendy and I included,  stayed outside  in the streets before we made our way across  to one of the music halls that   had remained open for the benefit of the British people.

All night, as the joyous news was spread across the world, James, Wendy and I enjoyed each other’s company, dancing, singing and allowing ourselves to forget what had taken place prior to this glorious day. Indeed, we had expressed the desire to each other for the day to continue on forever. None of us wanted that rapturous day to come to a close.

But alas, come to a close it did. Midnight arrived and we were driven back to Atley Manner, falling into our beds with a smile on each of our faces. We were happy. I had managed to dance with quite a number of interesting young women and James and Wendy had spent a great amount of time on that dance floor. I had been happy watching them. And, reader, I was beginning to think that there might be something of an all so slightly romantic relationship developing between them. I know, I was slow to catch on, but I did notice eventually.

The next morning brought  even more surprises, and they were nice surprises as well, not an awful surprise like finding a murdur of crows nesting in one’s chimney. And yes, a group  of crows is indeed a murder. Would you believe that?

Anyway, as I have said, the next morning brought even more surprises. I got up quite early when one considered the lateness of the hour at which we went to bed, and came downstairs to find a large amount of letters resting on the carpet beneath our letter box.  

Picking these up, I moved into the  kitchen, fixed myself a cup of that all so  delicious beverage that British people all know and love, and set to opening these letters. My sense of triumphant surprise was heightened more than somewhat as I realised from whom these  letters had come and what they were about. Each and every one of them was written by someone who wished to take up a job at my chocolate factory. Each letter ended with a variation of ‘I do hope you will accept me.’ I intended to do just that. Thus far, the  chocolate factory that was now in my proud name had not yielded any fruit what so ever, even the sorts of fruits that grow on unlucky trees. Now, I had been given the opportunity to line my pockets with  some jolly cashingtons all earned by me. And my workers, of course. I would have to pay them.

I sat down at the kitchen table, picking up a pen and beginning the long and   arduous process of writing back to  everyone who had  told me of  their desire to become a worker in my factory. Indeed, it was a long process, thirty plus letters in all. But as the hour of ten struck and the rest of the household finally decided to rise from their pits, I  finally concluded my letter writing with stinging eyes and a soar hand.

The confirmations  were sent and I had to wait only one day before returning to the factory to conduct the  interviews. I  know that it must  have seemed strange, a  seventeen yearold young man interviewing people, some of whom were older than himself, but  someone had to do it. And it was my chocolate factory after all. Who else would  conduct the interviews.

The day spent conducting the interviews was, if possible, the longest day I had ever spent in my life thus far, and I spent days at Saint Dickheads college in Oxford, don’t forget. The people I interviewed were for the most part, highly professional and I liked more than half of them. Over fifty people applied on that first day alone and I accepted every single one  of them. In a few days time,  as Monday morning  broke over  Britain, I would have  a factory of   people working diligently to make sure that  the confectionary world was a better place. I was happy with my  choices and decisions. I was even happier with the outcome of that day spent conducting interviews. I believed that I had found a group of people who would assist me in the  running of my factory. In no time at all, money was about to roll into the pockets of William Wonka and his workers. I was excited. I was very excited. The war was over. The factory was up and running and I was on the threshold of some  real  and positive change.

As I walked home from the  factory that evening, I felt a  balloon of pride expanding in my chest. I had a great deal to tell James,  Wendy  and my mother once I returned home. Celeberations of an even greater kind were clearly in order. The Wonka household had finally come into some golden opportunities. No longer would we be the family crushed by grief and hardship. No longer would we have to hide our faces from the society in to which my father had installed us. Now, the Wonka’s would be able once again to hold our heads high, as we had done before that dark period following my father’s death. Good times were ahead at no mistake. Jolly good times.  


	24. Chapter twenty three: A sky full of silver linings, with just one black cloud.

The first month  of my more or less self employment at the chocolate factory that I now   owned sent  our finances through the roof. The end of the war had  brought about  a growing  need to wash away the troubles that had existed during that world wide conflict and I was eager to assist the people of Britain in their efforts to cheer the world up.

It worked as well. In less time than it would take me to tell, which is saying a lot as my general rule of thumb is ‘why use one word when ten will do,’ I had a factory full of happily employed people who were all  inthusiastic about the  creation of some decent  confectionary. Luckily for me, the money was rolling in, meaning that demand for chocolate also  rose, as did the productivity of the place. I was growing richer, and growing happier.

In response to the uplift in both my luck and my family’s  fortune, I felt the need to celebrate. What with Christmas being around the corner and all,  I decided that I would take my mother, sister and  James Wilkinson out to one of the most prestigious and upper class  restaurants in the city of London. I believe that I know what you are thinking. ‘Surely, Willy Wonka, a person like you who has experienced such hardship, would more than likely wish to give back.’ No. It is nice  that you see in me such a kind person. Alas not, my friends. I was then and still am now, an utter arse. If you have it, own it.

Anyway, about this celebration. There were many swanky upper class restaurants to choose from in London, but after much deliberation I chose to take my family and friend to a nice place on the outskirts of the great city that featured what the menu called ‘the fruits of the forest platter.’ I will enlighten you on this much saught after dish in a few paragraphs time.

First though, I feel that in order for you to get a detailed impression of this elebratory meal, I should set the scene for you.

This restaurant was packed with people of considerable wealth enjoying a bite to eat in style. The room was brightly lit with large windows overlooking the streets of London. At the time of our arrival, the sun was slowly setting behind the rooves and chimneys of the houses and the golden glow that spilled onto almost every table added a pleasant ambience to the whole scene. I know. Sounds lovely doesn’t it? And it was.

My mother, Wendy, James and I made for a table in the middle of the room in order for our presence to be noted and remarked upon by everybody coming in or leaving. We sat  down and began to peruse the menu. It was a long menu, a long and meaty menu. As we servayed it closely, our stomachs began rumbling, sounding rather a lot like starving thunder.

The waiter approached our table, but luckily or unluckily for him, depending on what way you like to look at it, it was all that we could do not to eat him. “Are you ready to order, sir?” he asked me in as polite a voice as I had ever before heard.

I nodded. “Indeed we are, good man,” I told him, though I had no knowledge of the man’s morrol character in any way, shape or form. “To start with, I think we’ll have the crispy deep fried lion.”

The waiter’s smile was several football pitches wide as he replied, “an excellent choice  if I may say so, sir.”

I was sure that he was right. “And then for the main course, I would like the roast swan. I’m sure that his majesty won’t mind.”

“And madam?”

 Wendy looked up. “I’ll just have the deep fried otter, please.”

I was impressed with my sister’s  exquisite taste in food based things.  I turned to James who was studying the menu closely as if he dearly wished to be allowed to eat the entirety of what  this  restaurant offered. “What would you like, James?” I asked. I felt it not only  right, but necessary to give this man a portion of my   generosity, though it was not large as  we have already mentioned.

James waited for what seemed to me to be an infuriatingly long time before replying. “I do not know, dear Willy Wonka,” he told me brightly, oblivious of my rising wish for him to  simply decide  so the rest of his friends could get something to eat.

“Just decide,” I told him, trying to be patient.

James frowned. “But I can’t,” he told me, voice  slowly transforming into that of a  whiney child, “it all looks so good. I can’t choose one thing.”

“Please, I insist,” I insisted.

“I request that you choose for me,” he requested politely.

I am afraid to say, reader, that at that  point my  temper frayed and then snapped. This fraying and snapping of my temper lead to me grabbing young James Wilkinson by his coller and putting mine own face dangerously close to his,  saying in a low and furvent hiss, “order some bloody food, would you?”

James  meakly complied and  ordered that dish I  mentioned earlier, that dish being  the ‘fruits of the forest platter.’ I shall now deviate from the narrative to explain briefly what the fruits of the forest platter is. In layman’s terms, this dish is one made up of badgers, weasles,  hedgehogs and stoats, delicately  garnished with pine coans, dead leaves and small samples of bark from every tree that still grows in the forests of Britain today. In doing  some very minimal research on this book, I have found out that this  dish has been subsequently discontinued. I can’t  say that I mind too much. In my old age, I have become increasingly focused on maintaining the wildlife preservations of the world and I know now that this particular upper class dish does not meat with  those  requirements. Parden the pun.

I turned back to the waiter. “And to drink,”  I added, “we would like…”

But the waiter interrupted me. “Your drinks have already been taken care of, sir.”

“Oh,” I said in surprise, for I was surprised indeed, “bye who?”

The waiter pointed to a person sitting across the room from us. “By that  gentleman over there.”

I turned around in my seat in order to acknowledge this person with possibly a manly nodding of the head. But Idid not do this, for the  person whom the waiter had pointed out was a tall, wirey, malicious  looking middle aged man who had a twinkle in his eyes that suggest nothing more or less than trouble with a capital TROUBLE. I did not like the look of him, and it took only moments for me to realise why. I recognised that man.

Arthur Slugworth. Ruiner of my family, creator of my bitter memories, instigator of my misery and constant worry lerking at my shoulder.   

The waiter was trying to maintain my attention. “He sent a note along with your ordered drinks, sir,” he told me, passing me a piece of  paper which I immediately unfolded and began to read.

‘Dear William Wonka,”  the note read, ‘if I said that I was pleased to see you alive, I would be lying.’

I placed the note upon the table and turned  to Arthur  Slugworth who had silently approached me and was now looming over me like a malevolent shadow. I glared up at him. “Yes,” I snapped, “thank you. I can read it for myself you know.”

Arthur  Slugworth frowned.  “I was just trying to be helpful. He had no need to be invited to sit down. He knew he wouldn’t be, but in any case, he sat down anyway and I glowered at him. This man had all the class and social graces of a monkey, a monkey who has been raised in the zoo by other monkeys that  had no manners.

“Leave us alone, Mr Slugworth,”  I demanded.

“No,” the older  man replied simply.  He turned to Wendy who was also glowering his way. “Good evening, young Wendy. How pretty you look this  evening.” 

 Wendy was certainly not willing to take him on. She picked up her fork and began to stab Arthur Slugworth in the hand with it, like the fine spirited young woman that she was. Wendy was after all, a suffragette. No man bossed my sister around. “My brother told you to leave us alone, Mr Slugworth,” she said firmly, “and I must insist that you do so.” 

Slugworth didn’t seem at all willing to do as Wendy and I had bid. But luck was on our side once again as the waiting staff had returned with our crispy deep fried lion and he saw, quite rightly, that he could do nothing more to any of us. He rose and wandered away from our table, much to our delight and I sighed with relief. 

I was glad to have the man out of our sight and subsequently out of mind. He could do nothing to us while I and my family were in public and I was glad of that too. But his reapparence in this incredibly random fashion in the middle of the restaurant had shown me once again that all was not safe, and was probably never going to be absolutely safe. I was rich, I was safe from his corruptible and corrosive influence and yet he was never far from our lives. This thought made me uneasy. I vowed to keep a closer watch on him in the future.

But alas, reader, it was not to be, for soon after my encounter with Arthur Slugworth, an interest of a rather different kind took over my life. It is now time for me to mention that great love that I believe I have eluded to in earlier chapters. For on the day of the new year, 1919, that great love made her presence known to me, and that presence was to change my life forever.  


	25. Chapter twenty four: As the new year dawns, Cupid's  arrow finds its mark.

The year of our lord 1919 was rung across Britain’s ceptered isle and everyone celebrated. No  longer was our nation at war and though our heavily damaged industries were still recovering, no one could  think of  a bad word  to say about  his or her position in life.

I and my family were reaping the rewards of my recent take over of the factory and money was now rolling in, as were the invitations to fancy parties, at which people of considerable fame and  renown would be found.  Wendy, ever the supportive sister that she was, took to opening and endlessly perusing each and every one of these letters and at first, I had tried my upmost to   diswade her from sending a reply. Eager though  I was to show my face in Britain’s high society, I still retained a measurable amount of humility. Now if I’m being honest,  that’s a lie. But I did feel the need to put up a pretence at being humble. I do not know whether or not Wendy had been convinced.  “We do not need to attend any balls, dear sister,” I had told her, trying my best to sound convincing, “we are a humble family who need not to beg for scraps of attention from those in the upper classes.”

Wendy had been disappointed. What had started as a childish eagerness every time the post arrived at our door soon turned into sulk as she disguarded with increasing sullonness the letters that were sent. The hopeful positivity that often drove everything she did caused her to continue opening each and every letter that was sent our way and though I continued to try and prevent her from dwelling upon balls and parties, I too was becoming increasingly interested.

One morning in early January, I stumbled sleepy eyed from my bedroom to discover another bulging sack of letters resting upon the carpet in front of our front door. It was still early and as no one else in the household was awake yet, I decided that I would take over  Wendy’s letter reading duties for the day.

Taking a seat  in the armchair in our living room, I  rested the sack of letters on the floor in front of me and pulled out the first envelope, flipping it over absent-mindedly in order to see who had sent it. Not that I minded. I really wasn’t interested, reader. Honestly.

I glanced down at the address printed on the back of the  envelope and felt the  reality vanishing from my neatly ordered world as if someone had decided to play games with both my eyes and my mind.

The address read, Buckingham palace, London, and then a post code that was nothing more than an inky smudge. The post code was not required however, as the simple name of the place had shocked me more than enough. Buckingham palace. That could mean only one thing. The king himself had sent me a missive.

I am and never have been under any elusions. I in no way believed that the king himself had sent the message. It was far more likely that someone on his staff had written it for him, but the fact remained that this particular letter had been sent to me via Buckhingham Palace.

I opened the envelope in a great hurry and pulled out the sheet of paper that had been secreted inside. Squinting down at the paper in my hand, I angled it towards the light from the slowly rising sun and began to read.

“Dear Mr Willy Wonka,” the letter read in neat handwriting, “you have been invited to a  new year’s dinner on behalf of his majesty King George V himself. His majesty  is a great lover  of the chocolate and sweets made  in your factory and would very much love to meet you in person. His majesty also   extends the invitation to any family members who wish to accompany you. King George very much hopes that you shall be able to make it.” There followed the name of one of the king’s staff – something that I lost interest in very quickly. 

I sat there for a long while with the piece of  paper clutched in my hand. I had been invited to a new  years dinner with the king. Yes, my family too had been invited, but the invitation  was mainly for me and only me. Ah, reader, looking back upon my life now, I realise that it is a burden to be so brilliant.

“What is that you have, Willy?”  asked an eager voice to my right.

I twisted round in my armchair and saw my sister   Wendy standing before me, eyes round with open curiosity. It was a rhetorical question that she had asked,  I knew. Wendy was no fool. She knew precisely what I  was holding and even as I prepared to formulate an answer she was already reading the missive over my shoulder.

Her squeal of  excitement almost took me by surprise as she reached the bottom of the letter. “The king has asked you to dinner,” she shouted, again in an infuriatingly rhetorical manner, for I of course knew what the letter said, “and  he has invited you to the palace.”

“I know,” I said in a much quieter voice, “I do not think I shall attend however.” This last was n outright lie, it must be said.  I fully intended to make my  presence  known at his majesty’s new years dinner. I just  wanted to make Wendy beg me to  permit the family to go. I know it seems rather cruel, reader. I accept this. However, teasing one’s sister is a big brother’s  privilege.

As I had predicted and wished for,  Wendy widened her eyes at me in a manner far too simper for my sister, in truth. “Oh, come on, Will,” she said plaintively, “I want to go. Fancy, being inside  Buckingham Palace. Who else would be able to say that?”

I kept a straight face as I replied, “the king’s staff,  for a start.”

She powted, looking more like a child of five than a grown woman of seventeen years. “Please, Will,” she begged, “please can we go?”

I held my straight faced posture for as long as I could, but as I believe I have mentioned before, I am no actor. I fell apart quickly under my  younger sister’s  pleading  scrutiny. “Ok  then,” I told  her with what I hoped was the upmost reluctance, “we can go. The   party is scheduled for this evening. I do hope that you have an  appropriate gown.”

Wendy beamed, pleased that I had  agreed to her pleas for the moment. “I have a gown that I think would be suitable.”

I smiled. “good, go and look it out then. We set off this afternoon.”

And indeed we did. We were finantially well off enough to be able to afford  a fancy carriage that took us towards Buckingham palace, a place we journeyed to in a state of high excitement. James,  Wendy and I – my mother had not wished to accompany us, rode to the king’s own home with butterflies in our stomachs. No one amongst our treo knew what would happen once we stepped through those doors.  

We were hurried through the  gates of the palace, though the process of working out who we were before hand  took a long time for his majesty’s staff, despite the fact that I had brought along the invitation sent by king George himself.

Once we were inside, Wendy, James Wilkinson and I were lead to the ballroom where the dinner and dancing was being held. We stepped through the doors, our eyes traveling as one around the room into which we had been directed. It was easily the largest room we had ever been in, and we lived in a mantion don’t forget. Large chandeliers made of solid crystal hung from the ceiling and glittered as we looked at them. Golden plates and bowls were layed upon each and every table and glasses of wine stood beside them.

I looked round at the people with whom I was spending the evening and as I let my eyes settle upon each face in turn, one face stood out in stark relief from all the rest.

 She was standing across the room from me and I think that she sensed my staring eyes upon her, for she soon turned her face in my direction.  It was a stunningly beautiful face, framed with a sheet of flowing golden hair. Blue eyes glinted at me as she looked my way and I found myself  frozen in stupefied amazement at the goddess standing at the other end of the room. I found myself standing oblivious to everything around me, knowing not  whether Wendy or James were still beside me. I looked only at her,  the face that could launch a thousand ships plus a few more besides, and the regal way in which she held herself. In that moment, I knew not who this woman was, and she did not know who I was either. I knew only one thing. I wished to get to know who she was. I wanted to speak to her, and would have made my way across to where she stood if my nerves had not held me back.

I was determined however to strike up a conversation with this extraordinary young woman. Oh how glad I was to have decided to attend this ball. How very glad I was.  


	26. Chapter twenty five: Enter Cassandra, who's presence will have an important effect on the narrative.

The ball room was busy and I had to fight my way through the crowd of  happily chattering people to get to whre the eautiful woman was standing, eyes swivelling around the room and scanning every face. Was she looking for me? I certainly hoped so.

“Where are you going, good sir?” one man asked in a loud and carrying voice.

I halted in front of him, looking up into his face. I knew him not but I recognised the swanky upper class attire and guessed that this man was a nobleman,  whether he was of higher rank or lower I did not know. “I  am  looking for that woman over there,” I told him, pointing at the goddess with the golden hair who as yet had not  moved. “If you please, sir, who si she?”

The richly dressed nobleman turned and followed my  pointing finger, smiling in a slightly thunder-struck manner as his eyes fell upon  the golden haired woman. “Oh, she is  Duchess Cassandra,”  he told  me with a smile similar to that  of a poor church mouse who has spied a piece of cheese half way across the dusty  chapple floor, “she is   one of the most beautiful women in the  city, even in the kingdom.” I felt my mouth drop open in characteristic and somewhat stereotypical surprise at that. Duchess?  This beautiful woman was a duchess? “She is a member of the royal family then?” I asked.

The nobleman nodded. “Oh yes, good sir. She is the Duchess of Hereford. I think she is twenty fifth in line for the throne at the minute, yes,” he replied, “and let me tell you, there are many eligible young men who are vying for her hand in marriage. Cassandra is expected to make someone from a noble family a fine wife one day. I do not think you have much of a chance.”

‘oh yes,’ I said to myself, ‘well,  she has not yet met Mr William Wonka, chocolatere extraordinare.’ Though I had experienced very little of friendship with the farer sex, I was eager to get to know more about it.  Before I decided to put my plans for Casandra into action though, I decided to offer this gentleman a condescending remark of my own. “I bet you have  not had much opportunities to talk with her either?”

The man beside me shook his head. “No, sadly not,” he said with a sigh  of resignation and defeate, “I have not yet spoken with her. Nor have I spent considerable time following her every move in the newspapers nor bribed people in the palace to  send the  Duchess cards and letters  for me.”

I paused for a moment, realising that the latter  statement had been one of sarcasm. He had probably done considerably more  besides. I would not have been surprised if he had sent her flowers and chocolates or some other soppy and sickeningly romantic things, jestures about which I knew nothing.

“Oh well,” I said, deciding not to follow this conversation any longer, “I shall go and talk with her.” ‘You watch me, sunshine face,’ I told the richly dressed stranger  inside my head, ‘I will show you precisely how to behave towards the farer sex.’ In actual fact, I  knew not what I was doing or what I would say to  Cassandra when I came face to face with her,  but I remembered everything that James Wilkinson had said to Wendy and decided to do and say the exact opposite.

I marched across the floor of the ball room, confidence  rising as I  approached the figure of the golden haired beauty standing  at the far end. In moments, I was standing directly in front of Cassandra, looking into  those  perfect features and preparing to say something of grandious importance. I opened my mouth, watching as Cassandra’s eyes swivelled towards me, blinking in  obvious interest. The   words that I was intending to speak were on the very tip of my tongue and  I  began to croak out the first  silible.

“Erm…” I began, rather haltingly.

But that was about as far as I got before I was brutally and rather unceremoniously tackled out of the way by a very angry looking figure in a uniform of black linen. I hit the floor with a thud which was accompanied by  a grunt of pain and a cry of “ good God, do you mind?”

The figure in black  linen stood above me,  seeming to me to  be intimidatingly tall  as I  sat on the floor  of the ball room. “How very  dare you!” he, or it appeared to be a he, shouted with fury, “how dare you talk to my  charge. How dare you even look at her?”

It was more than clear that this man was not about to help me up any time soon and so with a slightly disgruntled sigh, I clambered awkwardly to my feet  and looked  the black clad man directly in the eye. He looked a little familiar somehow, but I couldn’t work out what made him so. “I beg your parden sir,” I said with as much politeness  as I could muster, “who are you?”

The man dressed in black frowned. “I, good sir, am Duchess Cassandra’s body guard and protector, Mr   Jeremy Slugworth.”

I gawped with open astonishment. Duchess Cassandra’s  body guard and protector,  a man who didn’t seem at all amused by my attempts to commence a conversation with the young woman was none other than the brother of the man who had saught for so long to make my early life miserable. I hadn’t had a clue that Arthur Slugworth even had a brother, but he apparently did. This man would be a more than formidable opponent indeed. I was in no doubt that Mr Jeremy Slugworth would do all that he could to protect  Duchess Cassandra from  members of the lower orders.

But  an emotion I had  never before experienced drove me on. “Well, good sir,” I said brightly, “may I walk and talk with your charge?”

Jeremy Slugworth shook his head firmly. “No, of course not,” he replied, “the Duchess is no woman of the night looking for a good time.”

I said nothing, agast. I had not so much as intimated that the beautiful  duchess was anything of the sort. Jeremy Slugworth was clearly rather old fashioned in his views of courtship.  But I let the man rant and stood there  in silence.

“You are very rood and impertinent, good sir,” the man continued, “if you wish to  begin a friendship with     her royal highness, you may apply in writing for a tea appointment. Apart from this, you are at liberty to do nothing else.”

I nodded eagerly, looking past the bulk of Jeremy Slugworth at the slender figure of the duchess who appeared to be listening and watching what I and  her body guard were saying and  doing.  I was eager to apply for that all important tea appointment with Cassandra and instantly agreed that I would do  just that.

I wasn’t wanted any ore here and so I strode away in search of something else to do. As I walked away, I could have swarn that I heard the tell-tale sound of the duchess giggling behind me and my heart swelled with yet another emotion  I could not quite identify. Was it excitement? Expectancy? Or perhaps  something else besides? I  didn’t know but as I slipped into the centre of the throng of dancers, I vowed that I would find out and persue the duchess  in every way I could. Even if her body guard was the  brother of  Arthur Slugworth, the only man I had  ever feared, I was determined. The Duchess was worth all of that. I wanted  more than anything  to make progress with Duchess Cassandra and nothing was going to stand in my way.

 

Editor’s note: The   dukedom of Heriford no longer exists. Duchess Cassandra was the last of that great line and because of tragic circumstances that shall be explored later on in the narrative, she never did   managed to bare any children.  Her relationship with Mr Willy Wonka was the last she would ever have, and though they  would  eventually marry, that marriage would end with the abruptness and force of an explosion.


	27. Chapter twenty six: Love blossoms in  a very British way.

The   remainder of  that soon to  be fateful royal ball passed in relative   boredom. I  stayed at my table, ignoring everything that went on around me  with determination.

 Now that I had met the beautiful Duchess  Cassandra,  every other woman in the room seemed dull and  lifeless in comparison. I   amused myself by watching James Wilkinson and my sister  Wendy dancing  on the dance floor,  Wendy with easy grace and James Wilkinson with innept flailing. But it was an interesting  spekticle nevertheless. I could see the charm in it. Now that I was in love and madly so,  I could more easily see the budding love in others, and James and my sister were showing all of the signs that I recognised. As I stood alone at my table, caring not for my conspicuous solitude,  my mind spun into overdrive. I could see James Wilkinson and my sister Wendy accompanying Cassandra and myself on  romantic days out, though I could not yet work out in what forms those  romantic incounters would take. I could see the four of us   marrying in the true British style, with cakes, tea and merriment and I smiled at the idea. I know how foolish I  must have looked, dear reader of mine, like a total wolly brain, smiling like a madman at nothing anyone else could see.  I did not care however. Cassandra would soon be mine. That was all that  mattered to me.

I  arrived home  at half past the hour of one, an unseemly  time for anyone in the upper classes  to return home from a night out, but it took me hours to fall asleep. This was partly because the first thing I did when I got to my room was pull out a sheet of paper  and begin to write.

Cassandra’s body guard had given me the idea. In the post war  year of 1919, hospitality and manners was of  increasing importance, and so an invitation for afternoon tea was legally binding.  While this  particular legal contract could become a nusense if said tea appointment was with someone one did not much like, in this case, I found myself growing  eager for tea and   polite conversation.

So I applied myself to the task of applying for a tea  appointment with Duchess Cassandra, praying that  I would receive a reply quickly. Then I switched off my lamp and  crawled into bed, my heart light with the thought of  meeting up with Cassandra again sooon.

Happily, I did not have to wait very long before I received a reply from Cassandra, stating  that I COULD indeed meet up  with her for a tea appointment alone. Alone. That thought struck me as  more exciting than anything I  had experienced in  my  life thus far. The slip of paper   sent by the Duchess stated that our tea appointment was in two days time, at three PM at the Corthorn Café in the centre of London. As I tucked the piece of paper back into the envelope, I smiled. I would see Cassandra very soon, in two days time. I only had to wait for forty eight hours or so, and that was easily bareable. I had work at the factory to take my mind off it until then. 

As I had hoped, the forty eight hours passed quickly. I worked  hard and  tried my best to forget  Cassandra and the tea  appointment that I hoped would bring us a little closer together,  until the day of the fated  meeting arrived.

Three PM  arrived swiftly and as the   bbooming bells of Big Ben chimed across the city, I was at the door of Corthorn Café. The heavens were smiling upon me this day as the sun was shining down on London’s cobbled streets. I waited  patiently for the arrival of the duchess,  gazing at  every horse and carriage that  passed the café’s  doors.

At last, a carriage appeared and stopped  in front of the  doors of Corthorn and the pretty figure of the duchess emerged, stepping down from the carriage and turning to offer a few  words of thanks to the driver. As I watched,  Cassandra moved round  to where the horses stood, and gently  stroked the noses of each one in  turn before making her way towards the café doors and towards me.

She was wearing a beautiful gown of deep blue silk, the long skirt rippling in the breeze. Even I, a british man who knew nothing what so ever about   fashion  knew that the gown suited Cassandra  very well indeed. Her long golden hair was lose and she was wearing only the merest suggestion of make up. She  looked devine, like a goddess walking the Earth, my own Hellen of Troy.

“Ah, it’s William Wonka, isn’t it?” she asked in a voice as beautiful as her face, which was to say extremely. She smiled at me as she came to stand by my side.

I nodded. “Yes indeed. We met at the King’s party.”

She grinned. “Ah yes. I remember you. You struck up a rather interesting conversation with my guard, did you not?” She tucked a lock of golden hair behind one ear and looked up at the blue sky, then back at me. “I must say,  I have been looking forward to meeting you. Shall we go in?”

I nodded, and turned to open the café doors.

The delicious smell of coffee and cakes hit me hard in  the nose as I lead Cassandra inside. It was warm in the large cluttered room and as the door closed behind us,  Duchess Cassandra turned   to me with a grin.

“Have you ever been here  before?” she asked brightly, making for a table by the window.

“Not yet,” I replied, taking a seat at her side and waiting for the waiter to approach us. I could think of little to say as the beautiful duchess stared at me. What could I say? What should I say? Suddenly, this  tea  based meeting didn’t seem like such a good idea.

Cassandra must have sensed   my growing discomfort for she took the  decision to commense a conversation out of my hands. “You run that chocolate factory in the city, don’t you?” she asked happily.

I nodded. “I’ve had it for quite a while now.”

“I wish I could work somewhere like that,” Cassandra replied, “all  I GET TO DO IN MY LIFE IS GO TO TEA with people I hardly know and don’t much like.” She smiled as the waiter approached our table, ordering a cup of hot chocolate and a scoan. She payed the man and continued. “I mean to say, being twenty fifth in line for the throne is interesting but I still don’t get to have much fun.”

I grinned, similarly ordering that most British of beveridges, a cup of Earle Grey and nodded at her words.  “You will have to come down and see the factory some time,” I told her brightly,”we would be happy to see you there.”

Cassandra smiled at me. “I would love that,” she said cheerfully, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a folded up sheet of paper. She suddenly offered me a  slightly  impish smile as she pushed the  folded sheet of paper towards me. “In fact, I have a few ideas for  different  flavours of  chocolate. I don’t know how useful it will be but perhaps you  might find some of my ideas useful.”

I grinned and unfolded the piece of  paper to reveal a list of ideas written in a hand as dainty and perfect as the duchess who  owned it. I read the list  carefully, making mental notes as I did so. Cassandra was clearly quite the inventer. I knew not yet whether any of her ideas would bear fruit, but at the moment I cared not. It was a wonderful jesture by a wonderful person and I couldn’t help but smile. “Did you come up with all of these ideas?” I asked, refolding the sheet of paper again and placing it upon the table in front of me.

Cassandra let out a giggle and nodded. “I certainly did,” she said shyly.

“Wow,” I told her with a soft laugh, “you must lead a really boring life if you spend your days coming up with ideas like that.”

Cassandra nodded. “I do,” she said with feeling.  “You can keep that list. I do hope my ideas will prove useful.”

We sat in silence for a while, I drinking my cup of Earle Grey and Cassandra sipping daintily at her cup of  hot chocolate. Though I still wasn’t entirely sure of what to say to Cassandra, I was aware of a more  relaxed silence that had settled between us, blessedly free of that awkwardness that had existed before  we had   taken seats at this café table.

Suddenly, growing more confident, I grasped hold of a  potential thread of conversation and decided to persue it. “So, what kinds of activities do you enjoy as a member of the royal family?” I asked, politely British to the last.

Cassandra’s blue eyes met mine and she smiled at me, that smile causing all sorts of magical thoughts to flit in and out of my  mind. “Oh, I love  riding best,” she replied cheerfully, “I’ve been riding since I was a child. Do you know how to ride?”

I shook my head firmly. I had never so much as seen a horse in real life before. I had seen  images of them  but had never thought them to be anything other than terrifying.

“You should come with me  on a riding trip some time,” she told me eagerly, “I could teach you  to ride. That is, if you allow me to visit your chocolate factory.”

It was a more than acceptable bargin to my ears. I nodded without thinking. “Certainly,” I said, placing my now empty cup down upon the table, “I would be  happy to do that.”

“GOOD.” Cassandra   looked down at her watch and a frown creased   her brow. “I  shall have to go, I’m afraid,” she  told me, slightly sadly I thought, “our tea appointment was only  supposed to last  for  an hour.” She rose to  her feet and smoothed down the folds of her dress. “I hope I’ll see you again soon,” she told me, making for the door and waiting for me to catch up with her.

I nodded, moving to stand at her side in front of the café doors, hoping that she would inniciate some sort of physical contact, maybe a hug or even, dare I say it, a kiss. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again quite soon,” I told her, mentally listing the things I could do  TO ENSURE THAT WE MET AGAIN as soon as possible. “I hope that you had fun.”

“I did indeed,” Cassandra told me happily, opening the café door and stepping out into the sunlit afternoon of early January. She turned back to smile at me one last time. “I’ll let you know when I’m out riding next. Is that alright?”

I beamed. “Certainly, my lady. I hope to see you soon.”

“And I to, William.”

And she  stepped away from me, making her way for the carriage that waited for her and climbing into the back. I watched her as she disappeared out of sight and continued to watch as the carriage moved off. I couldn’t stop smiling. I hadn’t been this happy in a long time. Perhaps I hadn’t felt such happiness since the days spent at Atley Manner with my mother, sister and father. Cassandra had awoken in me a sense of delight that I didn’t think could ever be quashed.

I waited until the carriage had disappeared into the distance before I began to make my way back home. My steps felt curiously light, as did my head. I wondered whether Wendy and James Wilkinson felt like this when they were in each other’s company. I found myself   empathising with their budding relationship considerably and as I walked on I felt the longing for Cassandra’s company taking over me. It might be days before I would see her again, but I prayed not. I would make sure to read all letters that came to the Manner in future, just incase she decided to contact me again. Oh, how I hoped she would.

 


	28. Chapter twenty seven: The narrative changes course as comments on the times are discussed.

Days passed without any news  from Duchess Cassandra  or anyone in the royal family, but though my mind was often   consumed with longing thoughts of the  woman who ahd become so present in my life, I still took great interest in the news from  Europe and the rest of the world, news that was far from good in many ways.

The war had ended and the country of Britain, as well as others, should have been celebrating its peace and prosperity. After all, the allied powers had won, had they not.  But the consequences of war were far reaching and so many of our young fighting men hadn’t returned home. As a result, Britain as a whole was plunged into difficulty. I occasionally paused for thought during my long days at the chocolate factory to ponder my own relatively good fortune. I had more than enough money to keep ten families fead, and so many people had nothing. Indeed, I was very lucky.

But it was not just news from our own country that appeared troubling to me. News from around the world was becoming ever more complex. Germany and Russia were mentioned  frequently in Britain’s newspapers and I read these stories with a troubled heart. Germany and Russia had both been involved in the  Great War that had carried on for four difficult years and had  taken so many of Britain’s fighting men, and though few people were growing concerned, I certainly was. I didn’t want another war to break out so soon. I didn’t at all think that such a thing would happen but still I feared.

Germany was appearing more and more in our  newspapers as January moved into February. France and Britain were trying to press Germany to  relinquish its army, navy and air force and Germany  certainly seemed quite reluctant to do   so. I read this particular story  every time it appeared in the papers and as more and more    information was  revealed to the public, the more I became strongly in favour of the treaty that was becoming known as the Treaty of Versailles. Though it had not been signed as yet,  and I didn’t think it would be for a long time to come, I  couldn’t help but  think privately that Britain and France had a point. I mean to say, dear reader, Germany committed henus crimes  in going to war against Europe and I could not help but  think that Germany as a nation deserved to suffer the consequences of war, just as Britain and France had done. I mean, if Kaiser Wilhelm had called off its attack on poor and defenceless Belgium, then neither Britain, France nor Germany would have ended up in the situation they were in  during the early days of February 1919. That was the plane and simple truth of the matter. Oh yes, reader. I may be just a simple chocolate making genious but I do have considerable knowledge in the field of world politics.

  However, it looked as if Germany was unwilling to give Britain and France the compensation they  deserved.

So, though the bloody war of 1914 to 1918 was now over, it seemed as if the conflict  was not. I wondered every day when that conflict would end. I only hoped that it would be soon.

The conflict surrounding Russia was if possible, even scarier than the conflict going on between Germany, Britain and France. If I thought the articles concerning the Treaty of Versailles was worrying, then the news about Russia was sending tremmers of trepidation sweeping through me.

The conflict within Russia had started months before February 1919. In July of 1918, the revolution of the Russian people had struck deep into the very core of the royal family that had ruled over the kingdom for centuries. The Romanovs, Czar Nicholas, his wife Czarina Alexandra and their children, Olga, Tatiana,  Maria and Anastasia, along with their younger brother Alexei had been killed in one fell swoop. The  revolutionaries had forceably removed the  most  cenior members of the Romanov family from the equation of Russian power and now the revolutionaries were seaking  the ultimate domination. They had simply exchanged one dominating class with another. Vladamere Lenin was seaking power and the red terror was  spreading across that great country, a terror that had exploded into being in August the previous year. The violence within the country was growing and so was the unrest. I wondered who would gain ultimate power in the end. I had put my money on Lenin, though I considered his ideas to be more than wrong in a thousand different ways. I, as an upper class British capitalist, saw communism as the root of all things politically wrong in the world and the Russian revolutionaries were trying their best to implament the communist ideology within the country. There was no way that would work.

But many supported Lenin, too many people in my view and I knew that the troubles would only get worse before anything began to get better.

Of course, the  worrying news of conflict, unrest and troubles were splashed across all of Britain’s newspapers day after day, so were the happier news. Actresses were making their names. New music was taking the world by storm and it seemed that the newspapers were trying to encourage everybody to forget their worries.  

For the most part it was easy. After all, Germany and Russia were miles away. Their conflicts were nothing to do with the British people. We had our own lives to live.

And so every morning after reading the papers, I placed them on the table again and tried to forget the stories I had read,  callace though it may have been.  

I wondered whether duches Cassandra knew about the afairs in Russia and Germany. I supposed that she did. As a member of our own royal family, even a minor member, Cassandra would have to keep somewhat abrest of what was happening in the world around her. Even the women of the royal family in the days of 1919 had to be informed of what was going on politically, whether such information mattered or not.  Cassandra’s family, The house of Windsor,     were or had been connected in no small way with the now non-existant Romanov family. Surely, Cassandra would not have been without her friends within the royal family of   Russia. I wondered what she  was making of  the whole thing. Was she frightened, or was she  angry? After all,  if she  had been connected with the now  diceased Romanovs, she  would surely feel some semblance of grief.

I made a mental note to discuss such things with her when she next invited me to spend time with her, whether that time would be spent in the café or out riding in the countryside.

As it turns out, the month of March brought with it a written message from Cassandra. I opened the letter with eager fingers and read her words quickly but with care, savouring every letter that she had written upon the page. She wished me to go out riding with her in a week’s time.

I couldn’t help but beam at this news. I would see my Cassandra again. It had been a month since I had last seen her at the Corthorn Café, too long in my humble opinion. But now the beautiful duchess of Hereford wanted to meet up with me again. I wasn’t about to turn such an opportunity down. I would send her a reply that very day and in a week, I would again catch sight of Cassandra. Though I was in truth still rather concerned about the idea of riding a horse, I was willing to risk any amount of nervousness or discomfort if it meant that I would get to spend more time with the duchess.

As March blossomed in a haze of sunshine and growing flowers, I prepared to take another bold step along the rocky road that was romance. I just hoped that this particular stretch of road, taken on horse back, would prove to be smooth enough.  

 

Editor’s note: Willy Wonka’s limited and one sided information about the concerns regarding Germany and Russia is due in no small part to the media of the time. His opinions on the Treaty of Versailles are also products of the times, as Britain’s people were on the whole in favour of the Treaty of Versailles and the penalties that France and Britain expected the Germans to pay. His views may seem  unbelievably  inconsiderate when one looks at his words through twenty first century eyes, but the  eera of 1919 was a very different time indeed.


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